Review Detail

Hazel is All That

Kids Fiction 560

All That and a Bag of Dog Treats

August 17, 2025 (Updated: July 01, 2026)

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

Hazel and her mother are out on a walk in the park, and Hazel is confident that her assessment of the world around her is accurate. She identifies mean dogs, shy dogs, happy dogs, and sag dogs just by looking at them. As she more closely observes their behavior, however, she starts to see that her first impressions might not always be accurate. The dog that she thought was naughty is not stealing a hat, but bringing it back to its owner. Hazel thinks about her own range of emotions as she gets an ice cream cone and subsequently drops it on the ground. If she can in turn be happy, angry, sad, and then happy again, perhaps these dogs have layers to their moods and personalities as well. This is especially apparent when she and her mother reunite a "mean" dog with its owner and realizes that the dog was really just scared.

Good Points

While I'm fairly certain there were very few picture books dealing with emotions and feelings thirty years ago when my own children were young, it is a HUGE emerging market. Books like Sharff's Joan in the Cone, LaRocca and Alwar's Fall if For Beginnings, Brandelius' The Playdate, and Boelts' What Coco Can Do are just some examples of new titles that all explore different facets of feelings.

Otis' exuberant illustrations, complete with his signature giant glasses on Hazel, pair well with the hand drawn style of text. The words and the dogs bounce around the page and give this title a lot of energy. I enjoyed looking for the different dogs on the pages and finding out what they were doing and how their personalities seemed to change.

The short sentences and generous white space on the page makes this a good choice not only for reading aloud, but for emergent readers to try out their skills. Hopefully, they won't be as frustrated as Hazel is when she drops her ice cream, but will come away with the feeling that they are "all that"!