Stinkerton McPoo is the finest and friendliest of dogs, but has one problem: terrible gas! Stinkerton lives with dads Papi and Daddy and their two children, A.J. and Grace, all modeled after author Stephen Hodgkinson-Soto’s real family. (The dads read as Latino and White; the children as White and Black.) In this volume, the family is off to the beach, where Stinkerton causes havoc while running after something delicious. Can she make amends by rescuing a sea turtle in need of help?
While gaseous dogs are not new to children’s literature (witness the popular Walter the Farting Dog series), nor are stories about dogs with same-sex owners (see The Adventures of Rumplepimple and Pickles + Ocho series), Stinkerton McPoo is the first to put the two together—and is also the first of a planned series. The fact that there are two dads is happily incidental to the story. The jaunty rhymes are fun to read and dog lovers in particular should enjoy this tale, however stinky the tail might be.