Freak369's Full Review: Dav Pilkey - The Hallowiener
I’ve always liked daschunds, even though they are short, long and waddle when they walk, they have always proved the saying “mans best friend” 100% true. When I was at the animal hospital a few years ago I was talking about a liter of puppies that someone had abandoned near my house and if I could bring them in to be checked out by the veterinarian. A curious lady asked me what kind they were, when she heard they were daschunds she let out a squeal, asked me if she could have a few of them and we exchanged phone numbers so she could arrange to come and get them. When she came to look at them and pick out a few [she left with three of them] she started to tell me that she loved the little things so much she wanted to do something nice for me because I’d taken them in, cared for them and footed the medical bills. I told her that adopting a few of them was more than enough but she returned a few days later with home made treats and a book called “The Hallo-Wiener”. Being that it was a few weeks before Halloween, the book was perfect!
The Hallo-Wiener
Oscar is your average wiener dog, he has a good life, goes to obedience school and more than anything, he is looking forward to going trick or treating. But with all the good comes some bad; the other dogs in the neighborhood tease him pretty much non-stop because of the way he looks, and true to life, his mother doesn’t help things when she shouts out that she loves her “little Vienna sausage”. While he’s at school he can think of nothing but ghosts, pumpkins and all the treats that await him. When he rushes home to whip up a costume he’s greeted with a surprise when he enters his bedroom. His mother, with all the best intentions in the world, made him a costume. Was it a scary skeleton? Was it a plump pumpkin? Was it a sword-wielding pirate? No, it was a long hotdog bun, complete with a thick yellow line of mustard. Not wanting to disappoint his mother, he put on a smile, kissed her and donned the outfit.
I guess Oscar knew he’s be the brunt of more than a few jokes when the rest of the dogs saw him so when they started laughing, all he could do was bow his head and sulk a little. Because the costume was so cumbersome he fell behind the rest of the pack and each house he called upon was void of any treats. Things took an abrupt turn when they walked past the spooky graveyard and saw a monster! Was it a ghost? Was it a mummy? Was it a pumpkin headed monster? If you guessed the last one you are right. With a loud hissing noise the monster chased the dogs to a pond where they jumped in hoping it would leave them alone. They cried for help and help arrived in the form of a cute little wiener dog named Oscar.
Since he was so short he spotted something the others had missed, peeking out from under the spooky costume were two furry feet and a tail. With a bite and a growl, Oscar unrobed the monster [I’ll leave that as a surprise] and saved the day. Proving that he was the bigger dog, he jumped in the pond to save the others. It seems the costume he was wearing wasn’t just cute; it was an awesome floatation device! Showing their appreciation for Oscar the other dogs shared their treats with him and a happy Halloween was had by all … well, except two little furry troublemakers that had their plans foiled.
My Two Cents
More than anything in the book, it’s the puns that always make me laugh. No matter how many times this book gets read, I can’t help but laugh when I see the mailbox with the name Myers on it [a pun about Oscar Myer hot dogs] or that the “other dogs hounded every treat they could get their paws on. These are things that kids might not pick up on until they get older and when I tried to explain them to Annabelle, it went right over her head. These little puns and the play on words are what make this a fun read for adults. But my person favorite has to be, “Then Oscar showed up, looking quite frank”.
Annabelle’s Two Cents
She has read this book at least a hundred times and knows the words off by heart but that never stops her from making me do the voices or her hissing at the two meanies in the book. The drawings are what really capture her imagination. “Why did she put mustards on it instead of ketchup?” and “Why are those other dogs soooo mean to Oscar?” are the questions she asks over and over. There are a few lessons to be learned from the story; never judge a person [or dog] by the way they look, be sure to tell your mom what you want to for Halloween and never trust a cat.
The Bottom Line
The illustrations in the book are extremely cute and really captivate a kid’s imagination. This is a great book for kids three and older but there are some words that they might have trouble with like ‘dog-paddled’, ‘embarrassed’ and ‘shrieked’. If you liked this book there are a lot of great titles from Dav Pilkey [that’s Dav, not Dave] like “The Adventures of Captain Underpants”, “Dumb Bunnies” and “Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot”. Even though this is classified as a holiday book [Halloween to be specific] it’s something that kids can read at any time of the year and it’s one that gets a lot of use in this house! To check out all the books by Dav, check out his official website at www.pilkey.com.
When is a hot dog not a hot dog? When he becomes a hero sandwich! Pilkey delivers a hilarious Halloween treat in this story about Oscar, a dachshund d...More at Alibris
Oscar is short, like all dachshunds, and other dogs make fun of him. On Halloween he takes more ridicule than ever in his hot-dog costume, but one bra...More at HotBookSale
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