Week 2: Henry the Dog with No Tail

Feiffer, K. (2007).  Henry the dog with no tail.  New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. 

I am definitely an animal-lover and I am certainly, positively a sucker for dogs.  When I saw Henry the Dog with No Tail at my local library, I grabbed it and immediately began reading it.  Although the illustrations are wonderful and the story does have moral, the content is a bit too cheesy for my taste and it is a story I probably would not pick up again.

Henry is an Australian shepherd and like many of this breed – and just as the title suggests – Henry was not born with a tail.  His many dog friends all have tails of different colors, shapes, and sizes.  Grady, Pip, and Larry all have great tails that serve a particular purpose, yet Henry is left feeling sad due to his lack of appendage.  In search for a tail, Henry finds a tailor and a wagon maker, and even goes to Battery Park in New York City.  With advice and suggestions from his friends, Henry is able to find just what he has been looking for…but is it really what he wants after all? 

Illustrator Jules Feiffer does a magnificent job of depicting Henry the Australian shepherd and his story.   The color of the story is a mix of cools and intense colors, all of which complement the text on the individual pages in the book.  Feiffer uses charcoal pencil to establish the line of an illustration and fills in with watercolor. 

Henry the Dog with No Tail would be a good example to use within the literature setting to teach students how to write stories that end with morals.  Henry learns a life lesson on the last page of the book.  Students could follow the series of events that leads Henry to discover this life lesson and model their own story after Feiffer’s.  I believe it would be difficult to use the content of the story for a lesson.

Big questions to ask students after reading this story: Why was it important for Henry to have a tail?  If you were Henry, would have wanted a tail?  Do you think Henry was happier at the beginning of the story or at the end of the story?