Grace Builds an Almost Perfect Dog - Perfect Picture Book Friday #PPBF

Dogs are such special friends and companions. And the idea of building and programming one's own pet is really intriguing. I'm excited to share with you this touching picture book which is the perfect combination of persistence, pet ownership, unpredictability, and coding!

Book cover - Girl sits with an instruction manual in her lap, tools about her feet, hugging her robotic dog

Grace Builds an Almost-Perfect Dog

Author: Curtis Manley

Illustrator: Tracy Subisak

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press (2025)

Ages: 4-8

Fiction:

Themes:

Pet, robot dog, coding, family, and friendship.

Synopsis:

A girl builds and programs a robot dog in this heartwarming STEM-based picture book perfect for fans of The Most Magnificent Thing.

Grace can’t have a real dog, so she takes matters into her own hands. She builds a robot dog named Kit!

Grace codes him to behave like the perfect dog. Kit follows her instructions perfectly.

He rolls over perfectly, every time.

He plays fetch perfectly, every single time.

But Grace soon discovers that maybe following the rules perfectly doesn’t make the perfect pet . . .

Great for aspiring builders and coders, Grace Builds an Almost-Perfect Dog is a tender tale about the power of friendship and determination.

Opening Lines:

Grace had wanted a dog for 3,124 days when she finally read about

a dog her parents couldn't say no to.

"It won't bite," she told them. "It won't shed, won't make messes,

and will never, ever eat smelly food. And it'll be my friend."

"That sounds like a fine dog," says Dad.

"To buy with your own money," said Mom.

But Grace could only afford the built-it-yourself version.

What I LOVED about this book:

What an awesome idea (and excellent premise for a book) - a robot dog! Only problem was, the build-it-yourself kit seemed to contain "a part for every day she had wanted a dog." And I thought the early Lego robot kits were complex!

Internal spread - on the left, a girl standing in front of her parents, sitting on the couch, showing a brochure - Bobot Dog. On the right, the girl the box to an avalanche of parts, wires, and gears.

Text © Curtis Manley, 2025. Image © Tracy Subisak, 2025.

Despite some lost gears, a bent tail, and months of work, Grace finally finished the robot dog. Tracy Subisak's digitally colored pencil illustrations are so endearing and full of wonderful treasures. I adore Grace's overalls with the tools packed into her pocket. When she turned it on . . .

Internal image - on the left, girl covers her heyes and head as the robot dog shoots flame and on pulls a smoking mothe out of the robot's access panel. On the right, robot dog sits looking at the girl wagging its tail.

Oh no, Kit had a bug. A wayward moth had gummed up the works. With the smoking moth removed, Grace turns on the robot, turns to "step number 529" in her manual. and names the dog "KIT." I really love that Curtis Manely organically incorporated both an easy introduction to coding [such as "Teach your dog its name by saying, "Hello, <dog's name>. That's your name! <dog's name>!"] and the more in-depth programing of a "Start Loop" to add to the preprogrammed simple commands ("Come here," "Stop," & "Speak"), Grace's new commands like "Roll over," and "Fetch." Tracy Subisak does a great job of setting these apart on black pages, which allows the reader to continue the story or linger and learn some easy elements of coding.

Kit was perfect. Every command executed with precision. Yet Grace was not satisfied, but she couldn't put her finger on why. When she visited a dog park - every dog was mischievously misbehaving. So, she re-programmed Kit with mischief and random commands. Now, Kit behaved more like a real dog. When she and neighbor Danny took Kit to the park, Grace through the stick too far. "She heard a clatter on the rocks — and then a splash."

Internal spread - a girl crys over her damaged robot dog, as her neighbor tries to comfot her.

This is such a poignant and heart-wrenching moment, which still carries a bit of whimsy with a close focus on Kit's robotic eyes and Grace's tears forming bubbles and drifting across the page. I love the persistent, can-do, inventive, and scientific attitudes of Grace and Danny as they each come up with perfect solutions to fix Kit.

This is a wonderful book that begs the question of what makes the best pet dog. And a wonderful back matter offers insight into the universality of errors in coding and provides a step-by-step guide for starting a coding project and testing the results - including even a picture book. This is a wonderful picture book on coding which also offers a little insight into relationships and friendships with dogs, too.

Resources:

make your own pet dog puppet, dog hand puppet, a dog stick puppet, marionette puppet, or toilet paper dog. Does your dog have a name?

play with some young coding activities and older unplugged coding activities and games.

check out the super fun Design Activities, Coloring Sheet, and Coding Exercise that accompany the book!

If you missed my interview with Curtis Manley and Tracy Subisak on Monday, find it (here).

This post is part of a series of blog posts by authors and KidLit bloggers called Perfect Picture Book Fridays. For more picture book suggestions and resources see Susanna Leonard Hill's Perfect Picture Books.