Sam and Dave Dig a Hole [Hardcover]

A 2015 Caldecott Honor Book

With perfect pacing, the multi-award-winning,New York Timesbest-selling team of Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen dig down for a deadpan tale full of visual humor.

Sam and Dave are on a mission. A mission to find something spectacular. So they dig a hole. And they keep digging. And they find . . . nothing. Yet the day turns out to be pretty spectacular after all. Attentive readers will be rewarded with a rare treasure in this witty story of looking for the extraordinary — and finding it in a manner you’d never expect.A clever second collaboration between Barnett and Klassen... The prose is deadpan; the joke’s all in Klassen’s winsomely smudgy illustrations.
—New York Times Book Review

Barnett’s well-chosen words and plentiful white space support readers. Klassen’s cross-section illustrations give readers a mole’s-eye view of the underground proceedings, extending the spare text with visual humor.As in his previous books, Klassen shows an uncanny knack for conveying meaning with the subtlest of eye movements. How fitting that the wordless final spread features a knowing look between the dog and a cat familiar to Klassen fans; all that’s missing from the trippy conclusion is the theme music from The Twilight Zone.Mind-blowing in the best possible way.
—Horn Book (starred review)

When Sam and Dave dig a hole, readers get "something spectacular." The boys, on the other hand, do not. Their quest to find the spectacular brings them painfully and humorously close to buried jewels as they spade their way into the ground, accompanied by an intrepid canine companion. ... Poor Sam and Dave. Lucky readers.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Barnett’s comic voice is at its driest as he recounts that quintessential American childhood activity—the digging of the giant hole. ... Cross-sections of el“W