Book 'em

While we wait patiently for the president to return from Europe, so the really important things can happen — like getting a dog for your kids — USA Today has a story about two books written about the First Dog.

They are:

Which Puppy? (Simon & Schuster, $16.99, ages 4-8) will be released April 7; First Dog (Sleeping Bear, $15.95, ages 4-8) arrives April 15.

Which Puppy? is written by Kate Feiffer.

Feiffer, 45, quickly wrote a story and enlisted her father, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer, 80, to do the illustrations. He spent three weeks "drawing dogs day and night."

I love Jules Feiffer's cartoons, especially those in the New Yorker, when he would draw someone doing an interpretive dance.

The other book is by another set of close relations.

Meanwhile, another father-daughter team, J. Patrick Lewis, 66, and Beth Zappitello, 44, had just handed in a manuscript about an "All-American mutt" in a global quest for a perfect home. The day after the election, their editor asked if they could revise the book. The result is First Dog, illustrated by Tim Bowers.