As the title indicates, a missing dot becomes the device for a whimsical alphabetic romp. It's the last day of Alphabet School, and Little i hops out of bed to join his friends. But something is amiss. "Little g gasped, Little p pointed, and Little s stared." They ask, "where is your dot?" Little i hadn't noticed it was missing! All of the letters offer to help find it, bringing him vaguely dotlike objects and using verbs that correspond with their names. "Little b burst forward with a balloon," and "Little d dashed over with a donut." Little i is offered variously an egg, a gumball, a kiwi, an oyster shell, and more. Cartoonish illustrations present simple letter shapes with pipestem arms and legs, dots for eyes, and small lines for eyebrows and mouths to lend them character; they are a colorful bunch, popping against the mostly white background. While the conceit allows for fairly graceful treatment of Q ("Little q questioned, ‘How about this quarter?' ") and Z ("Little z, always last, zoomed over with a zero"), all Little x has to offer is a "xylophone mallet." The ending is a clever solution with a twist: Little i left his dot on his pillow—but Capital I, his father, thinks maybe he's big enough to do without anyway. Kids will giggle in delight as they make their own suggestions for dot replacements. (Picture book. 4-8)