Dogs Think That Every Day Is Christmas

by Ray Bradbury, Louise Reinoehl Max (Illustrator)

First edition. Signed and inscribed by Ray Bradbury on the title page.

Genres: Poetry, Dogs

Hardcover

First published September 1, 1997

About the author

Ray Douglas Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction.

Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of age novel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001).

The New York Times called Bradbury "An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation" and "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".

Reviews

[Jakob J. 🎃 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Co-written with his wife, Marguerite (generally an unwise collaborative effort lest one risk creating the poetic equivalent of John Lennon bringing Yoko Ono on stage to screech through a Chuck Berry performance), this additional holiday poem is no tear-jerking Mary Oliver masterful ode to our canine companions, but it’s a cute appreciation of man’s best friends and their simple, unconstrained joy, with some strange similes:

”They lean out car windows
Like drunks at bars, snuffing gin”

I admit I can’t quite work out what image I’m meant to be conjuring here, but I’m a whisky guy (perhaps we’re more like when the dog gets into a batch of brownies).

Quoting Melville’s “fabulous beasts” commendation of dogs from Moby-Dick in his introduction, Bradbury didn’t consider that it’s better and about as long as his forthcoming poem. Accompanying illustrations for that fragment would be a more welcome gift book, but I could say the same of almost any paragraph from that masterpiece.

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1995, a few months prior to the holidays, Ray Bradbury overhead someone say “Dogs think that every day is Christmas,” and so Bradbury did exactly what you’d think he would do under the circumstances. He went around interviewing the next dogs he met, asking them “What day is this?” to which they responded: “If you gotta ask, you’ll never know!”

Of course, what followed was that he wrote this poem, and as a result, this book was born in March of 1997.

At the end of his introduction, Bradbury writes:
To paraphrase the opening paragraph of Melville’s Moby Dick --when it is a cold, grey, melancholy night in my soul, I do not go to sea. Never that, no. I stand me up, turn me around, and head off for…
The nearest Dog Show, where, surrounded by a dozen score of fabulous beasts, my soul is warmed, my heart knows peace, and I come forth all smiles and laughter.”

Beautifully illustrated by Louise Reinoehl Max, this was just a nice little read with beautiful illustrations that gave me a brief peek into the mind of Ray Bradbury.

[Erin Cataldi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and sweet - I was thinking that this was going to be something else entirely - but this book is straight outta left field. That isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it - I did - it was just so unexpected. The book opens with a with an introduction and confession about how he wronged his dog Pete when he was a child and has never fully been absolved for it - then follows the poem "Dogs Think That Every Day is Christmas" that is not as child friendly as these amateurish illustrations would lead you to believe. An odd but endearing little book from the master of sci-fi.

[Stephen Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very small book by a famous author. I unfortunately was not impressed. The book starts with a couple of pages of an introduction from Ray Bradbury where he relates how as a boy he had hit a dog that had run away and then came back. The message about finding forgiveness somehow didn't quite connect with me. Then the book was of a poem, with one line paired with an illustration. The poem I thought was nothing special, with not one line I felt strong enough to want to repeat in a review, and I didn't care for the illustrations. So, other than a notch on my count to read 1,000 dog books, and no help in finding the 'best' dog books, this is not a book I recommend.

[Danielle Palmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Dogs think that every day is Christmas; they lap it with their necktie tongues, devour it with wide, bright eyes that say, “look at that weather! Try it on! Just my size!” They lean our car windows like drunks at bars, sniffing gin, while driving in the same cars, running, lose, they win! They mark each tree in passing just to let the world know “I was here. Do you see? I was here!” From the start of a glorious season to the end of a marvelous year. All smiles, with a guidon-staff tailwag they silently shout, “Gee whiz!” Because dogs wake each day to Christmas. And, matter of fact, I’ll be damned, it is! “

[Mark Oppenlander · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another Bradbury poem converted to a picture book. It's designed as more of a gift book than anything and there's not much to it. I would say more, but I fear that my review might be longer than the book itself.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever idea (the title says it all) and the poetry is passable but hardly profound. The art is cute.

[Vikk Simmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely, little book with cute illustrations to take you out of your everyday mood and into a place where the dogs play. As the guardian of 7 rescue dogs, I would concur that dogs do, indeed, think that every day is Christmas and that you should think so, too.

The big treat is the warm and thoughtful personal note by Bradbury outlining his life with dogs and, so like Bradbury, containing a story within a story.

I'm a dog lover; I'm biased. How could I not enjoy this little book?

[Philip Tha- B. Toole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute :>