ALA Booklist

From title page to endpapers, visual humor abounds in this simple book of opposites. A little boy and his dog, Lucky, romp through the pages with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of affection for each other. Each double-page spread illustrates two opposite ideas. Lucky's dry announces the text--while the picture shows the cheerful dog atop the head of the boy, who straddles a floating beach ball. On the facing page comes the inevitable conclusion: Lucky's wet, illustrated with a splash. A drawing of the dog licking the boy's cheek illustrates Lucky gives, while the boy smooches his pooch's face for Lucky gets. Though the interplay of text and illustration has more subtlety and wit than most books of opposites, there's no mistaking the meanings of the paired images. Milgrim's pleasing artwork, in digital pencil and pastel, distills the characters' forms to their essential lines, rendered with warmth and wit. Fun for reading aloud.

Horn Book

A boy and his dog cavort through the day, illustrating a series of brief and often clever pairs of opposites. To demonstrate "Lucky's loud," the dog is pictured barking; to demonstrate "Lucky's quiet," he is still barking--but his owner (also the narrator) is wearing headphones. The spare illustrations, which appear childlike and quickly rendered, capture the classic friendship between boy and dog.

Kirkus Reviews

A deceptively simple exploration of opposites, illustrated by the relationship between a boy and his dog, Lucky. Milgrim's ( Patrick's Dinosaurs on the Internet , 1999, etc.) cartoony illustrations depict a Charlie Brownlike round-headed boy and his genial brown dog as they demonstrate a series of opposites on succeeding double-page spreads. "Lucky gives / Lucky gets [kisses]" "Lucky's sad / Lucky's happy." The two characters are surrounded by white space, with only the most necessary contextualizing details added. In the "Lucky's hungry" picture, for instance, the viewer sees a table with a piece of cake and an excited Lucky; but when "Lucky's full," the dog is no longer to be seen, and the boy is left holding a carton of milk, his cake reduced to six crumbs. The "Lucky's loud / Lucky's quiet" spread features two nearly identical pictures of the boy doing his homework and Lucky barking (the dog's mouth is open and little "bark" lines emerge, indicating noise)—the only difference is that in the "quiet" illustration, the boy is wearing earmuffs. Definitely not an introductory concept book, this offering clearly depends on a fairly sophisticated ability to decode the conventions of illustration. It is, however, a splendid primer in the art of visual irony, and its sly humor will have young readers chortling. It is also, of course, a love story; that the dog is not the only member of the pair who is lucky is amply illustrated on the endpapers, which reveal Lucky and his friend waking up together and then settling down for sleep in a happy heap on the boy's bed. A winner, and not just for dog lovers. (Picture book. 4-6)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In this mild-mannered book, juxtaposed concepts ("Lucky's sad/ Lucky's happy") accompany naïve drawings of a boy and the title dog. Each two-part spread presents different moments in the same scene, along with simple words that express a changing condition (here/ there, warm/cold, lost/ found). "Lucky's big" shows the ochre-gold dog facing a tiny green caterpillar; "Lucky's small" finds him grinning nervously at a curious horse. "Lucky's loud" has the dog with his mouth wide open, barking while the boy does math homework. "Lucky's quiet" wittily solves the noise problem, with Lucky continuing to bark and the busy child wearing earmuffs. Milgrim (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Cows Can't Fly) quick-sketches the uncomplicated images in a skinny black line on bright white negative space, and his minimal phrases appear in small print across the top of each page. Only the characters get a dab of color, and Milgrim anchors them with a horizon line or a piece of furniture in the foreground. The spare book design and casual drawings may be deceptively simple, but the word-and-picture combinations suggest a lasting give-and-take friendship. Ages 3-7. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Jan.)

School Library Journal

PreS-A gentle concept book about opposites. In quiet pictures, a boy and his dog demonstrate big and small, sad and happy, lost and found, etc. Each spread includes a drawing and two words of text per page-"Lucky gives/Lucky gets"-until the last page, which proclaims, "I love Lucky/Lucky loves me" and shows the affection between the child and his pet. The simple digital pencil-and-pastel artwork totally fits the sweet tale. Effective for one-on-one reading and for small storytimes, this is a good, solid purchase.-Kay Bowes, Concord Pike Library, Wilmington, DE Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.