ALA Booklist (Tue May 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)

Muted realistic pencil drawings in yellow, blue, and gray tell this wordless story of a dog's exciting day. After waking his owner, a construction worker, the pair climb aboard a big yellow excavator and go to work cleaning up trash. What's next? The two have lunch. The dog shares its bowl with the snack lady's fluffy puppy. Yellow squiggles alert the dog that the adorable puppy, woofing loudly, has fallen onto a tree above a water-filled trench. The construction worker can't quite reach the whining little one. Now it's time for the big digger to come to the rescue! The brave canine rides down in the bucket and rescues the pup, grabbing him with gentle jaws. The two pooches and the snack lady ride back up together in the bucket, and the final picture suggests the dog's job is a puppy watcher. Meanwhile, romance is blooming between the two humans. Done with a variety of panels and full-page spreads, the story encompasses a hero's journey with adventure, a wise mentor, romance, and a happy homecoming. All cleverly told without a single word!

Horn Book (Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)

In this wordless story told via pencil drawings with yellow and blue accents, a dog joins its owner at work at a construction site. When a coworker's pup gets stuck in a hard-to-reach spot, canine cunning and digger dexterity save the day. This book is a perfect next step for fans of Alexandra Day's books about another good dog.

Kirkus Reviews

A little white dog and its human friend use their excavator to rescue a puppy in this endearing wordless picture book.Clad in matching yellow safety vests, a dog and a human live and work together on a construction site, and their specialty is the excavator. After running the equipment all morning, the pair heads to the snack stand to have lunch with the young woman of color who runs it and her puppy. While the humans chat, the little white dog is keeping an eye on the site when cries of distress arise from a drain grate, where the puppy has become trapped. When the dog and its human are unable to reach the frightened pup on their own, the little dog suggests (with a tug on the vest) using the excavator grab to save the day. Prendergast's pencil-sketch illustrations are full of movement and fine detail, using broad panel layout to show multiple angles of perspective and to reveal the full narrative impact of each scene. Even the dogs' vocalizations are wordless, represented by jagged yellow lines that deftly convey urgency. The mostly gray palette is broken up by the assured deployment of bright yellow and blue to draw focus and highlight emotional tension, though the bright-on-bright of light gray and yellow in some of the panels may prove difficult for readers with low contrast sensitivity. The excavator operator has pale skin.A lively visual tale of friendship and bravery—charming. (Picture book. 3-7)

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

In this debut, British artist Prendergast-s pencil drawings don-t jump out at viewers; they-re shaded in a midrange of grays with bolder yellow tints. Yet her wordless story rewards close inspection. A shorthaired dog lives in a trailer with its owner on a construction site. The first panels establish intimacy between the two as the dog leaps into the owner-s bed to wake him. The owner, who operates a digger, climbs into the cabin, and the dog hops up next to him. After a morning-s work, the site-s canteen worker introduces her small pup to the operator and his dog. While the humans talk, the pup runs off, and the operator-s dog soon alerts them to trouble: the pup is trapped out of the humans- reach. The dog gives the operator the idea of using the digger to rescue the terrified pup, and dramatic spreads follow the successful rescue. The circumstances are just plausible enough to be intriguing, and Prendergast adds further realism to her story by portraying the operator and his dog with naturalistic, expressive detail. The story, with its satisfying, almost documentary feel, might become a bedtime favorite. Ages 4-6. (May)