🌟REVIEW: "The Most Magnificent Thing" by Ashley Spires (Childrens Fiction)

	The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires Publisher: Kids Can Press Genre: Childrens Fiction, Dog Lovers Publication date: April 1, 2014 (Affiliate links)
Description from Publisher: Award-winning author and illustrator Ashley Spires has created a charming picture book about an unnamed girl and her very best friend, who happens to be a dog. The girl has a wonderful idea. ?She is going to make the most MAGNIFICENT thing! She knows just how it will look. She knows just how it will work. All she has to do is make it, and she makes things all the time. Easy-peasy!? But making her magnificent thing is anything but easy, and the girl tries and fails, repeatedly. Eventually, the girl gets really, really mad. She is so mad, in fact, that she quits. But after her dog convinces her to take a walk, she comes back to her project with renewed enthusiasm and manages to get it just right.
My Rating: I received a digital ARC from the publisher through NetGalley.com for an honest, unbiased review. My opinion is my own. I showed the cover of this to my 3-year-old son and he immediately insisted that I read it to him. :) He really enjoyed the dog throughout the whole book, and so did I. It was fun to see the girl's "assistant" acting so naturally. The art in this is well done and my son enjoyed pointing things out in them. I would have liked some of the "wrong things" she made to be a bit more obvious (the furry one, for instance), especially with more colors thrown in on the actual "things." The story seemed to drag a bit while she was making things, but I really liked the moral of the story and the surprise at the end of what she had in mind. It's a great lesson even for adults: You often need to step away and take a breather while working on something in order to make something "magnificent." And, of course, that one person's trash is another person's treasure. All in all, this was an adorable book that I know I'll be reading again. The friendship between the girl and her dog is perfect for little (and big) animal lovers.