ALA Booklist (Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2009)

Sally and friends are playing in her backyard when they notice that her dog and cat, Max and Ollie, are missing. Determined to find them, they run through their neighborhood, the park, and the zoo; venture into the country and to a tropical island; and finally travel around the world and into space before locating the animals in the backyard. The fanciful story is less important than the overhead views of the search, which create maplike scenes of the children searching across land, sea, and space. Map-related information appears in bold type on each spread. Younger children will enjoy finding Ollie and Max in each ­cartoon-style picture, but older ones can pick up quite a bit about maps, including their purpose, use of symbols, and terminology, e.g., compass rose and legend. An appended project shows children how to create maps of their bedrooms.

Horn Book (Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

Each double-page spread introduces a different skill or map type that Sally and her friends can use to find Max and Ollie, her missing pets. Boldface instructions explain each map. Readers will enjoy looking for the kids and pets in the cartoon illustrations, but may struggle to learn how to read a map from this book. Ind.

Kirkus Reviews

Kids like maps. They like to look at them and they really like to create maps of their own. In this introduction to reading and using maps, Sally has lost her dog and cat, and Ritchie uses maps to trace Sally and her friends' trail as they search for Max and Ollie. Starting in the neighborhood and moving out, these good-natured buddies travel far and wide. Each page shows a different type of map (road, weather, topographical, even a treasure map, among others) with both narration and map facts in white space to the left of each map. While most maps have a compass rose and scale box, not all do, and that limits the book's usefulness as a teaching device. Though the kids are looking for their pets, who presumably can't get all that far, the logic of the story falls apart when the author places them on a weather map, a globe or even in outer space. Children will enjoy finding the hidden animals on each page, even when the characters miss them. A fun, if muddled, introduction to maps. (Picture book. 5-7)

School Library Journal (Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

Gr 3-5 In this clever introduction, Sally and her four friends are looking for her missing cat and dog. The simple text is accompanied by a colorful map that uses symbols to identify places such as the library. Next, the youngsters explore the park, and the map shows how to follow a route. They continue their search in the city, the countryside, and eventually across the world and the solar system. On the way, a different type of mapfor example, weather, topographical, and treasureis featured on each spread and explained. The idea works well for the first few pages but falls apart as the children go further and further afield. However, the information is solid, and readers will enjoy looking for the animals, who are hiding somewhere in each map. Back matter includes instructions for creating a map of a bedroom. Wendy Woodfill, Hennepin County Library, Minnetonka, MN