I was recently drawn to the beautiful illustrations of Marc Simont’s picture book The Stray Dog, which is about a family that meets a stray dog during a picnic in the park. My favorite part of this book is how even though Simont’s illustrations are simple, they still give the dog so much personality and energy, and the dog’s behaviors and expressions are so familiar: the way he trots with his head held high on the cover, or the way he lunges after a stick are so true to a real dog. I also love how Simont sometimes leaves whole sections of his illustrations blank, which highlights how alone the dog is when he first appears, and which also gives the impression that the watercolors are spilling onto the page.