Doggs and katts hate each other, as everyone knows. It's an enmity that becomes more evident when Oscar, a happy-go-lucky dogg, and Mollie, a snooty katt, simultaneously vacation with their families at Western Frontier Park. Oscar and Mollie independently get lost in the woods, but they encounter each other while fleeing a mountain lion. Their sniping gradually fades as they realize they must work together to survive. They encounter nasty hybrid animals in the woods, like weaselboars, but other wild animals help them. When they finally make it back to camp, their parents are so busy hating each other that they don't even let the kids explain. Oscar and Mollie may have had to form an alliance in the woods, but now that they're back with their families, will the biases they've been raised with take over? Extra humor is layered in through the cartoon illustrations as this timely anthropomorphic tale conveys how hatred and prejudice can be overcome.

An age-old rivalry is reluctantly put aside when two young vacationers are lost in the wilderness.Anthropomorphic—in body if definitely not behavior—Dogg Scout Oscar and pampered Molly Hissleton stray from their separate camps, meet by chance in a trackless magic forest, and almost immediately recognize that their only chance of survival, distasteful as the notion may be, lies in calling a truce. Patterson and Grabenstein really work the notion here that cooperation is better than prejudice founded on ignorance and habit, interspersing explicit exchanges on the topic while casting the squabbling pair with complementary abilities that come out as they face challenges ranging from finding food to escaping such predators as a mountain lion and a pack of vicious "weaselboars." By the time they cross a wide river (on a raft steered by "Old Jim," an otter whose homespun utterances are generally cribbed from Mark Twain—an uneasy reference) back to civilization, the two are BFFs. But can that friendship survive the return, with all the social and familial pressures to resume the old enmity? A climactic cage-match-style confrontation before a worked-up multispecies audience provides the answer. In the illustrations (not seen in finished form) López plops wide-eyed animal heads atop clothed, more or less human forms and adds dialogue balloons for punchlines.A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme. (Fantasy. 9-11)

An anthropomorphic feline katt and canine dogg family immediately clash after arriving at Western Frontier Park for vacation. The characters personify stereotypes associated with their species, most markedly the refined, uppity katt patriarch and the uncouth, cantankerous dogg father. Caustic, patchily comical mutual insults fly freely in both the narrative and speech balloons within López-s wryly exaggerated cartoons, at times growing tedious. When Oscar (a Dogg Scout who has earned 14 badges, -most of them for chewing different things-) and feline Molly (an aspiring actress who idolizes -Kattalie Portman and Katty Purry-) meet while lost in the forest, they declare a temporary truce, and by pooling their instinctive talents and relying on the kindness of wild, ironically civilized animals, manage to elude predators-including the -weaselboar,- one of multiple droll hybrid creatures-and wend their way home. The authors pointedly postpone a conciliatory ending, as Oscar and Molly revert to their inherited animosity before following their consciences and taking a stand against ingrained, senseless hatred. This mash-up of farce, fable, and slapstick ultimately delivers a profound and relevant message. Ages 8-12. (Apr.)