Think Like the D-Squad

Sully is ready to bark the squirrels off the bird feeder. He has a suspect, a plan, and nothing he actually saw. Phil Weiss opens Think Like the D-Squad in a Florida yard with four real dogs, and one quiet question stops the false answer. The problem you named is often the wrong one. Four moves the dogs keep using: Notice, Wonder, Test, Zoom Out.

The book will not retire Sully's hurry. In a later case, his stone should be warm at nine. It stays in shadow for weeks, even after he checks the clouds. Sully does not get the final say. Baz, called Taz, says what the room brushes off, and the book needs it. Dash refuses to close on Sully's word until someone watches. Phoebe points her nose at clover nine inches off a path Sully walked for three years without noticing. These stay separate cases. The Last Find, a later mystery, needs all four. A dare and the My Case sheet give the reader their own problem.

Weiss writes from the house he shares with these dogs. Sentences stay short. When a lesson gets heavy, the line Baz breaks in with is the best one on the page. When a famous finding is still fought over, the page says so in plain words. Phoebe's closers are a single sentence, and they stick. By the Test section, the shape of a chapter is familiar. A few lessons repeat. The pages keep turning anyway.

A kid can run the four questions on a stuck drawer or a friend who sounds too sure. Readers in grades 3 to 6 can handle the book alone. Standards pages give a teacher a place to start. The field guide is worth taping inside a classroom copy.