Can I Sit with You?

A little girl is walking up the street with her mother watched by a little brown dog, a plain little brown dog with no collar or leash. He follows the little girl until she sits on a stoop, lonely and sad, and then he introduces himself. “Can I sit with you?” he asks with a wiggle and a wag. They become fast friends, as little girls and brown dogs are wont to do, and they go everywhere together in good weather or bad, in green fields or gold, and even in the deep blue dark of night. The dog understands how the girl needs, sometimes, to roam and have other friends, because he has done the same, but when she comes home, he will sit with her.

Author/illustrator Sarah Jacoby has written a perfectly sweet book told from the point of view of the little brown dog, which gives it a specialness that other child/dog books don’t have. The illustrations complete the story in the best possible way, with soft colors and hazy subjects that will lull little readers into quiet fascination. This is a lovely book that will be read over and over.