A Dog is a Dog by Stephen Shaskan Ages 2-4 40 pages Chronicle October 2011 Hardcover     Dog is fooling us. He looks like a dog and acts like a dog, but underneath all that fur, he’s hiding a multilayered costume. He can change from a dog that is naughty or nice into a cat that hisses or purrs. When he’s a squid, he gets stuck in a jar; once he’s loose and turns into a moose, he can run in the spring or rest in the fall. Digital illustrations add humor to this rhyming story and clarify the meaning of words that appear as opposites (top/below; fast/slow). Memorable illustrations include the moose holding a flashlight between his antlers and a fencepost painted to look like a thin version of the dog. Speckled with white dots, the illustrations looked slightly aged. Pair A Dog is a Dog with the wordless picture book Elephant Buttons by Noriko Ueno for a toddler or preschool storytime about surprises.     web reviews   Tanya Boudreau/2011 for curled up with a good kid's book   For grown-up fiction, nonfiction and speculative fiction book reviews, visit our sister site Curled Up With a Good Book (www.curledup.com)