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Mar 01, 2019KateEHiebert rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
When I first heard that Dav Pilkey had a series called Dog Man, I was like, "Okay, that sounds totally dumb!" But then my brother started taking them out of the Library, so I picked one up. I was genuinely surprised by what I read. A few of my objections were correct: it has abundant potty humour and goofy action. But I what I found was not a Captain Underpants level goofy, but a hero story that actually had some extremely positive themes and explores some big questions. Can bad people change? How far do forgiveness and love go? What does it mean to be loyal? (Spoiler ahead!) In this latest book, there is even a nod to the resurrection story in the gospel, when Dog Man lures a villain into a tomb-like mine and is ultimately trapped beneath the rubble of a cave in. He does this in order to save his friends and family, with no thought to the danger he was putting himself in. The selflessness that he shows is extremely admirable. Lil' Petey shows unconditional love toward his 'Papa', never giving up on him, even when Petey himself doesn't want to try to be good anymore. So when you pick up Dog Man and are weirded-out by the surface level humour and action, don't give up on it. There are a few pleasant surprises beneath (some would argue far beneath) the surface.