Alex and his dog Max are true friends—the kind that share each other’s excitement, comfort each other when they are sad, wait together when parents are away, and have fun wherever they are. Alex is learning that every good relationship is a two-way street. By observing and listening to his dog, by sharing good times and bad, he and Max are earning each other’s love and devotion. Parents will appreciate the information about animal communication and the dog-child bond that they will find at the end of Max Talks to Me. Children will want to share Max and Alex’s adventures and friendship over and over as they read the gentle, engaging story and look at the beautiful illustrations.

Author Claire Buchwald lives with her husband, three children, dog, and cat in Bloomington, Minnesota. The author of The Great Mitzvah-Go-Round (ArtScroll, 2002), co-written with her husband Larry Bogoslaw, and The Puppet Book (Plays Inc., 1990), Buchwald is currently completing a nonfiction book on the power of imagination, reading, and pretend play in children’s lives. Buchwald, who has a PhD in communication from the University of California, San Diego, believes that children deserve the finest of writing because they are complicated, intelligent, full of questions, and strongly connected to the powerful capacities of imagination and awe.

Artist Karen Ritz is the illustrator of Daddy’s Song by Leslea Newman (Henry Holt and Company, spring 2007) and forty other award-winning children’s titles. She has been a full-time illustrator of books and magazines since 1989 and teaches classes for teachers and librarians about visual language and the art of children’s books. Her art for Kate Shelley and the Midnight Express appears as an animated feature on public television’s Reading Rainbow.