The compulsively errant pooch's latest touristic ramble takes him around the National Mall. It's a good thing the little dog is considerably less lame than the verse that chronicles his wandering: "Up sidewalks and stairs / Ran that little dog, Larry, / Then in through the doors… / …to a giant library!" Separated from his human family when he goes off after a fallen Popsicle, the dog's search for them takes him on a long, looping course from the Lincoln Memorial to the Jefferson Memorial, with quick scoots past the White House, through several museums and the National Archives, and into the Library of Congress. Skewes strews his flat-perspective cartoon illustrations with labels and descriptive notes for a select set of sights and sites, then closes with a page of study and research questions. Several of the captions, though, are printed on low-contrast backgrounds and so are hard to read. Moreover, only parts of Larry's route are traced on one of the two aerial views (the other is a stylized overview of the city from the Beltway that is too sketchy even to indicate its radial street plan), and that route doesn't reflect the actual order in which he sees things. A few standard-issue facts shoveled into a quick dog's-eye view of the Smithsonian and environs do not an effective tour make. (Informational picture book. 6-9)

It's another road trip for Pete, his parents, and their dog, Larry. Now in Washington, D.C., they stop first at Arlington National Cemetery, then at the Lincoln Memorial, where Larry gets lost. He runs past the White House as well as a number of significant memorials, monuments, and museums. Finally, he enters the Library of Congress, where a librarian helps him find his family members, who are at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. The weakest part of the book is the utilitarian, rhyming text. In contrast, the digital artwork is consistently dynamic and appealing. Nicely varied, the illustrations range from a bird's-eye view of the National Mall to a picture of the White House with tourists silhouetted against the green lawn. Older kids will learn from the descriptions of sites set within the illustrations, while younger ones will enjoy following the winding, dotted line that indicates Larry's path. This hybrid of fictional story and informational text is a useful addition to the Larry Gets Lost travel series for the picture-book crowd.