Boodil My Dog by Pija Lindenbaum tells the story of a child’s relationship with the family dog, Boodil, a bull terrier. The child describes Boodil as “brilliant,” “fierce, strong and brave,” with “nerves of steel.” The drawings in the story, however, paint a different picture, as Boodil is shown, among other things, moving very slowly, avoiding puddles, quivering under the couch, and crashing into the narrator’s baby brother.
The inconsistencies between the text and pictures raise many questions – including questions related to how we know what we know, the relationship between perception and truth, and whether we can understand other minds, including the minds of animals. And both the text and drawings are clever and funny. I’ve found that children love this book and it inspires interesting questions for them.
Jana Mohr Lone is the director and founder of the University of Washington Center for Philosophy for Children, an academic research center dedicated to research and practice in philosophy for children and philosophy of childhood, and she is an Affiliate Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Washington. Jana is the author of Seen and Not Heard (2021) and The Philosophical Child (2012). She co-authored the textbook Philosophy in Education: Questioning and Dialogue in Schools (2016) and co-edited the collection of essays Philosophy and Education: Introducing Philosophy to Young People (2012). Since 1995 she has taught philosophy in classrooms from preschool to college and beyond. A frequent writer and speaker about precollege philosophy, Jana is the founding president of PLATO (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization) and the founding editor-in-chief of the journal Questions: Philosophy for Young People. Follow her on Twitter: @JanaMohrLone