Bark, George

Named one of 100 Great Children's Books by The New York Public Library and #9 on School Library Journal's list of the Top 100 Picture Books!

From acclaimed author-illustrator Jules Feiffer, Bark, George is a hilarious, subversive story about a dog who can't . . . bark! This picture book geared for the youngest readers is perfect for those who love Mo Willems's Pigeon series.

When George's mother tells her son to bark, George goes "Meow," which definitely isn't right because George is a dog. When she asks him again, he goes "Oink." What's going on with George? Readers will delight at the surprise ending!

Plus don't miss Jules Feiffer's wonderful new follow-up: Smart George!

ALA Booklist Editors' Choice Maryland Children's Book Award Parents' Choice Silver Honor Keystone to Reading Book Award (Pennsylvania) Georgia Children's Picture Storybook Award Flicker Tale Children's Book Award (North Dakota) Florida Children's Book Award Charlotte Zolotow Award Honor Book Buckeye Children's Book Award (Ohio) Arizona Young Readers' Award ALA Notable Children's Book

"Feiffer's characters are unforgettable...the pictures burst with the sort of broad physical comedy that a lot of children just love. It all makes for a witty, laugh-out-loud play on the old favorite about the old lady who swallowed a fly." --ALA Booklist *(Starred Review)*

"Young readers will roar with laughter at this slapstick farce." --School Library Journal *(Starred Review)*

Author: Jules Feiffer
Publisher: Michael Di Capua Books
Published: 06/23/1999
Pages: 32
Binding Type: Library Binding
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.10h x 11.10w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9780062051868
Audience: Ages 4-8

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 1.3
Point Value: 0.5
Interest Level: Lower Grade
Quiz #/Name: 36594 / Bark, George


Award: Grand Canyon Reader Award - Winner
Award: Buckaroo Book Award - Second Place
Award: Flicker Tale Children's Book Award - Winner
Award: Texas 2x2 Reading List - Recommended
Award: Nevada Young Readers' Award - Nominee
Award: Red Clover Award - Winner
Award: Keystone to Reading Book Award - Winner


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 08/01/1999 pg. 2052
School Library Journal 09/01/1999 pg. 182
Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/1999 pg. 15 - Recommended, Satisfactory
Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2000 pg. 15 - Recommended, Satisfactory
Library Journal 12/01/1999

About the Author
Feiffer, Jules: - Jules Feiffer has won a number of prizes for his cartoons, plays, and screenplays, including the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. His books for children include The Man in the Ceiling, A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears, I Lost My Bear, Bark, George, and Meanwhile... He lives in New York City. In His Own Words...

I have been writing and drawing comic strips all illy life, first as a six-year-old, when I'd try to draw like my heroes: Alex Raymond, who did Flash Gordon, E. C. Segar, who did Popeye, Milton Caniff, who did Terry and the Pirates. The newspaper strip back in the I 1940s was a glorious thing to behold. Sunday pages were full-sized and Colored broadsheets that created a universe that could swallow a boy whole.

I was desperate to be a cartoonist. One of my heroes was Will Eisner, who did a weekly comic book supplement to the Sunday comics. One day I walked into his office and showed him my samples. He said they were lousy, but lie hired me anyway. And I began my apprenticeship.

Later I was drafted Out of Eisner's office into tile Korean War. Militarism, regimentation, and mindless authority combined to squeeze the boy cartoonist Out Of me and bring out the rebel. There was no format at the time to fit [he work I raged and screamed to do, so I had to invent one. Cartoon satire that commented on the Lin military the Bomb, the Cold War, the hypocrisy of grownLIPS, the mating habits of urban Young men and women, these were my subjects. After four years of trying to break into print and getting nowhere, the Village Voice, the first alternative newspaper, offered to publish me. Only one catch: They couldn't Pay me. What (lid I care?

My weekly satirical strip, Sick Sick Sick, later renamed Feiffer started appearing in late 1956. Two years later, Sick Sick Sick came out in book form and became a bestseller. The following years saw a string of cartoon collections, syndication, stage and screen adaptations of the cartoon. One, Munro, won an Academy Award.

This was heady stuff, taking me miles beyond my boyhood dreams. The only thing that got in the way of my enjoying it was the real world. The Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights revolution. The country was coining unglued and my weekly cartoons didn't seem to be an adequate way of handling it. So I started writing plays: Little Murders, The White House Murder Case, Carnal Knowledge, Grownups. All the themes of my comic strips expanded theatrically and later, cinematically to give me the time and space I needed to explain the times to myself and to my audience.

I grew older. I had a family, and late in life, a very young family. I started thinking, as old guys will, about what I wanted these children to read, to learn. I read them E.B. White and Beverly Cleary and Roald Dahl, and, one day, I thought, I ley, I can do this.

Writing for young readers connects me profess sionally to) a part of myself that I didn't know how to let out until I was sixty: that kid who lived a life of innocence, mixed with confusion and consternation, disappointment and dopey humor. And who drew comic strips and needed friends--and found them--in cartoons and children's books that told him what the grown-ups in his life had left out. That's what reading (lid for me when I was a kid. Now, I try to return the favor.