Dog Days of Summer

Dog Days provides kids and their parents or teachers a fun introduction to discuss how words can have layers of meaning. This book will help kids bridge the transition between concrete and abstract thought and learn to use language in a playful way.-Mary Wilde, MD, pediatrician and author of a memoir/parenting book, Faithful Nurturing: Mothering From the Heart to the Heart

A fanciful reimagining, giving new teeth to an old saw.-Dina Friedman, Hadley, Massachusetts-based author of young adult novels, Escaping into the Night and Playing Dad's Song.

Dog Days of Summer is a quirky, funny, free-flowing romp of idioms cleverly strung together to create a story perfected through comical illustrations sure to delight children of ALL ages.-Joan Robb-Fradkin, Los Angeles, California (and Northampton, Massachusetts) author of There's a Princess in My Living Room and Kugalicious

What a fun, colorful and entertaining book about these fun, colorful and entertaining phrases! The "Prompts and Circumstances" section offers good ideas to those reading this book to their young ones. This is a wonderful way to get children excited about words and language. - Amy Anaya, Head of Borrower Services, Jones Library, Amherst. MA

"Writing teachers frequently advise their students to avoid cliches. I'm happy that Jayne Pearl purposely avoided that advice for her delightful book, Dog Days of Summer. Yes, great literature benefits from new language constructions. But everyday conversation thrives on the skillful use of cliches by helping us connect through a common understanding of specific phrases. Pearl, with an able assist from Mat Bevilacqua's bold and colorful

illustrations, pulls beginning readers into the world of cliches as a rich resource for concept learning that focuses on units of meaning instead of just

words and letters. The section that explains and expands each cliche is especially useful for parents and teachers who share this delightful and

practical book."-John Sheirer, Northampton, Massachusetts-based teacher and author of The Alpha Dog Alphabet

Dog Days of Summer: Fun with Cliches! would be a wonderful resource in a class for English learners. As a teacher (now retired) with 35+ years' experience with adults from around the world, I was always searching for ways to make English expressions and idioms both comprehensible and memorable for my students. The lively illustrations in this book will appeal to both children and adults, and the conversational starters, explanations, and origins of the idioms make this particularly valuable for parents who want to help their kids (and themselves) improve their English.-Barbara Ingber, Richmond, Virginia

Center for New Americans is honored to have [inadvertently] provided the platform, through our annual literary event, 30 Poems in November! for the birth of Jayne's new book. As a long-time volunteer with Center for New Americans' ESOL students, Jayne knows that vivid pictures are one of the most valuable tools in our classroom toolkits, both in person and online. We look forward to sharing Jayne's new book with our students from around the world and expect that they may share it with their children.-Laurie Millman, Executive Director, Center for New Americans