By Dan Yaccarino
A rambunctious little French bulldog narrates the whole long, dramatic ordeal of waiting for his person to come home.
Murphy is a French bulldog with very big feelings, and right now the biggest feeling is waiting. His person has gone out, and to Murphy that is basically forever. He watches the door, he wonders, he works himself up, he flops down dramatic and heartbroken, and Dan Yaccarino lets Murphy tell the whole thing himself in a voice that's funny precisely because it's so serious about a short absence. Then the door opens, and the reunion is worth every second of the wait.
Any child who has watched a grown-up walk out the door knows exactly what Murphy is feeling, so the joke and the comfort land at the same time. Yaccarino's clean, bold, retro art gives Murphy a whole face full of emotion on every page, and the first-person voice makes a small dog's small drama feel enormous and warmly funny. The happy ending quietly tells a child the true thing: the person always comes back, and coming back is the best part.