Do Your Ears Hang Low?

The familiar action rhyme is here given a picture book treatment. Two dogs, with long and versatile ears, meet on the top of a hill and engage in an ear wagging courtship ritual that deserves to be introduced by David Attenborough. Full marks to Church for the idea, although the execution doesn’t quite live up to the promise. The dogs move to and fro across the pages, strutting their stuff, and the culmination of the dance is a double page fold-out with their ears ecstatically entwined. However, the doggy facial expressions and body gestures don’t have the eloquence, exaggeration or variety that might have made the most of the idea; and the setting is not as developed as it might have been. The story itself is followed by a double page spread in which a happy pair of children demonstrates the actions that go with the rhyme.