It’s a grand day for a dash when Dog decides to challenge Strawberry to the greatest race of all time! There’s plenty of action! Drama! Excitement! But…is Strawberry even aware of any of this?

We read Dog vs. Strawberry, written by Nelly Buchet, and illustrated by Andrea Zuill (Random House Studio, 2024). When Dog’s owner innocently offers her a strawberry, Dog takes it as an open challenge for a race. Dog sprints, jumps, leaps, chases her tail, and even takes a power nap. But the stoic (and completely unaware) Strawberry always seems to have the advantage. Narrated in a NASCAR commenter’s voice, this book is hilarious, with escalating laughs as our story time kids realized that the race was very one-sided indeed. Highly recommended!

The project was relatively simple. We crafted a box dog with poster board ears, tail, and a paper cup nose. We paired it with a red plastic ball pit ball made to look like a strawberry. Then we had some races!

The thing that really elevated the project was the dog’s super boop-able black foam nose. It’s a repurposed costume clown nose, securely hot glued to the paper cup. The foam nose made pushing and bumping the strawberry extra fun.

First, we raced down tables with the kids boop-ing the strawberry to the finish line. But then things segued into a form of soccer, where kids tried to boop the strawberry past me into a “goal.” Very appropriate for World Cup time! We had a blast!