Goodnight, Wendell: Forty Bedtime Stories About a Boy and Dog Who Wasn't Quite There: 1

Milo Finch is six years old, and the wind that comes down Plum Street one Tuesday in October brings a dog with it.He is enormous. He is the colour of buttered toast. One ear stands up and one ear has given up entirely, and he insists he is mostly a very large dog and slightly a small bear. Nobody else on Plum Street can see him.Over one turning year - first snow, longest night, the puddle with the whole sky in it, the road of gold the sun lays across the sea - a boy and his impossible dog make their way through the ordinary weather of being small. Forty short stories, one for every night, each about five minutes long and each ending exactly where a bedtime story should: in the dark, with somebody keeping watch.Goodnight, Wendell is a book for children who are frightened of the vacuum cleaner, the sock under the bed, and the sixteen hours of a winter night - and for the grown-ups reading aloud, who will recognise rather more of it than they expect.