Lost in a Good Book

Published: 1 November 2023
Publisher: Owlkid Books
Illustrator: Carmen Mok
Pages: 32
Format: Picture Book
★   ★   ★  –3 Stars

One day, Emma the dog leaves the vet with a giant plastic lampshade on her head. It cuts off her corners, dulls her digging, and makes Garson the greyhound gawk. One thing is clear-the cone is not good, and the only thing left to do is sulk. When Emma’s human tries to cheer her up with a game of fetch, Emma discovers that the cone miraculously catches every ball she fumbles! Emma realizes the cone has other surprising advantages too, from serving as a helmet during her hallway hurtles to helping her dig at triple-speed. This fresh and funny follow-up to Cone Cat is a charming ode to ingenuity and making the best out of a ruff situation.

The story follows Emma the dog, who has gone to the vet for an unspecified reason and left wearing a “plastic lampshade” aka the cone of shame on her head.

I love the insight into Emma’s life as she works out what the cone is, explaining her previous antics getting stuck in various things. Howden does a wonderful job letting us into the mind of a dog and how having the cone of shame on would feel: impacting digging, being judged by other dogs etc. As the story goes on Emma realises the cone has a lot of benefits and uses it to play a trick on a local pest which is delightfully cute.

The illustrations by Mok bring out Emma’s moods and her activities while in the cone, perfectly reflecting the words on the page. The other people and animals around her are a good combination of realistic but there is also room for playfulness as well. The colour scheme is also gorgeous with full page colours managing to be both vibrant and subdued.

I’m not sure how long Emma keeps this cone on for, the seasons change which is interesting, but given the lovely autumnal colours at the start it might be only a few weeks.

As someone with a puppy who has had a cone on before it was delightful to see her experiences reflected in Emma’s actions (especially the sulking). It is a fantastic book at seeing cone life through the eyes of a dog, which also takes away some owner guilt at having put them in it in the first place.

You can purchase Cone Dog via the following

QBD | Blackwell’s

Dymocks | Wordery | Angus & Robertson

 Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust