Review: These Talking Dogs Give Children the Wrong Idea About Government

Shmoo & Ozzie Go to Washington, a self-published children’s book about bipartisanship written by two high schoolers, Ellie Gottheimer and Larra Mullin, received favorable coverage this summer in The New York Times and Fox News. The national media coverage was partly because the two teenagers are the daughters of Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D–N.J.) and Markwayne Mullin, the former Oklahoma Republican senator, now the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Shmoo is from the city and Ozzie is from a ranch, but the two pups put aside their differences when their beloved dog park is threatened with closure. Rather than asking why the dog park is fiscally unsound, they lobby the Dog Congress, where both their fathers are lawmakers, to fund their pet project.

It’s unsporting to make jokes about a children’s book written by teenagers, especially when proceeds from sales are going to a nonprofit for homeless kids, but take your pick of complaints: nepotism, pork-barrel politics, or the fact that Larra Mullin’s DHS-chief father now oversees a massive network of human detention centers, which would be like if Ozzie’s dad ran the dog pound.

Teaching kids to look past partisan politics is a fine lesson, but bipartisanship in the service of bad ideas is for the dogs.