Just So Stories

Scholastic Australia

November 2025

9781761127816

$15.99

Xmas gift for middle grade kiddos

It’s been a while – 2011, we first met Mister Mosely and since then his award-winning fame has travelled the world, and it was a joy to re-visit his gentle nature, his quirky adventures, and his family.

We know how much the kiddos love a good dog story. A great dog story with laughs, love and tears is the ultimate, and that’s what they get with Just a Dog.

Drawing on doggish stories from his own childhood, growing up in Brisbane, Michael Gerard Bauer has given us a heart-warming, heartstrings-yanking insight into what makes a dog so much more than ‘just a dog’. When a dog becomes part of the family with loyalty, trust, gentleness, protection and goofiness, the traditions of the family become inextricably entwined with that canine member of the clan.

Mister Mosely is not a pedigree. He’s the result of a clandestine and quick affair between a purebred Dalmation and an unidentified, but clearly studly, mutt. And when toddler Corey chooses Moe from amongst all his siblings, a path is forged that will bond this family forever, even when it seems it might fracture. I don’t need to detail the plot – most of you will already know it but if not, shame! how could you have missed this one?

I reckon this new edition makes a genuinely welcome stocking stuffer for middle-grade readers and at not much over 100 pages, it’s a nice ‘slow down’ from the hustle and bustle of Xmas.

As well as that, I would think that many of you would be ready to update your collection copy or have this to hand, to read to your kiddos in the new year – it makes a superb read-aloud [as long as you can control your tears! it always makes me misty-eyed but, you know, kids need to see you moved as well].

We’ve most of us had that furred family that remains our ‘heart’ dog/cat/rat/whatever – in my case, out of the entire cavalcade, it would be Possum, my beautiful Burmese boy who was my companion through the tough years and then the run-away years. Pick this up and remember yours.

It gets a 5 🐕🐕🐕🐕🐕rating from me for kiddos from about Year 3 to end of primary.