The 12th Dog by Charlotte Calder and Tom Jellett

The delightful memories that this book brought up make me smile.

The 12th Dog is the classic Aussie kids street or backyard cricket match story – simple but fun.  Charlotte’s words take us on a sweet journey of the annoying ball stealer who is finally recognised for his great cricket playing skills, and Tom Jellett’s illustrations are adorable – especially the expressive, realistic faces the dog pulls throughout the book.

When I was growing up there were many games of cricket played in the street and dogs made really good fielders – but occasionally one would take off with the ball and there would be a stream of kids chasing the dog down the road to get the ball back.  From memory the dogs always outsmarted and outran all of us, which ended the game unless another ball could be found !  At one stage we had a ball crazy dog named Snoopy that the neighbours used to borrow for their backyard cricket games.  They put him to the test one day in a match that lasted five hours – he didn’t let them down !

This is a really great book that both children and adults will enjoy and hopefully it will get lots of you playing cricket with your dog – they make the best players…..and the best memories  !!!

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