I have no idea if this book has any literary or artistic merit — Bill Peet was never regarded as a classic picture book artist or a purveyor of fine literature for children — but it’s a well-loved book from my own childhood that I’ve been meaning to introduce to Ray for a while.

Orvie is a farm boy with a good old dog called Scamp. Scamp is an ordinary dog who wishes he could be fancier, like Palomar, the show horse who lives on a farm nearby. Orvie makes fun of his dog for high-stepping around pretending to be a fancy show horse. Mortified, Scamp runs away. Scamp meets a witch who senses his unhappiness with himself as an ordinary dog, so she turns him into a frighteningly bizarre mashup of animals called a Whingdingdilly, and for the rest of the book Scamp tries to get himself back into his regular body and back home. It’s an affecting story — powerful, initially depressing, but ultimately redemptive. My mother used to hate reading The Whingdingdilly to us because, admittedly, the text and story got a little laborious toward the end. Bill Peet was a cartoonist for Disney for years before turning to picture books, and you can tell that his writing skills were secondary to his drawing talents. But we didn’t care. We loved his illustrations and the story itself, we rooted for that poor old dog, and we were terrified of the witch.

Bill Peet published about fifty books for children during his lifetime. I’ve seen Chester the Worldly Pig around some, but the rest of his oeuvre has seemed to slip into the background. His illustrations are intoxicating to look at; you can see how Disney kept him busy for years. His work in no way reminds us of the saccharine, cookie-cutter characters you find in Disney productions today, however. Peet had his disagreements with Disney, and he eventually split off to pursue his own work in illustration. His books are worth a look next time you get to the library. ABZ

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