Little Scraggly Hair: A Dog on Noah's Ark

Cullen, Lynn. 2003. Little Scraggly Hair: A Dog on Noah's Ark. New York: Holiday House.

This story is about a scraggly haired dog a very long time ago. Back then, dogs had warm, dry noses and were not much use to humans. In fact, they saw dogs as ornery creatures who were only around to chase cats and dig up bones. Scraggly haired dog, was different though. He didn't much care for chasing cats and in fact he liked the way they purred, but they didn't want to have anything to do with him. He was a very lonely dog, and wanted nothing more than a little food and some companionship. One day he stumbled upon a man building an ark. He layed down and half expected to get shooed away, but the man named Noah did quite the opposite and gave him some food. Scraggly hair dog immediately wanted to please the man and helped him by fetching pieces of wood and tools to fulfill his wish of building a boat. God had told Noah to gather up the animals in pairs and bring them to the boat, and dog did just that. He nipped at the feet of the animals and dodged gigantic teeth of alligators. After the rain quit, Noah was so thankful for all of dog's help he bent down to pet him when he noticed that his nose was wet and cold. He decided to let him sleep in the house by the fire until his nose warmed up. To this day, dogs still have wet and cold noses and that is why they now get to sleep in warm houses.

This is such a wonderful twist to Noah's Ark. The characters are friendly, and readers can't help but fall in love with scraggly haired dog. The watercolor illustrations are are old fashioned and simple and contribute to the tale of the story. The dialect in which the characters speak is Appalachian, but makes the read aloud fun for the children. This tale of how a dog helped Noah, and became a household creature would make a great book in any child's collection.