Dog Lost
is a warm, moving, uplifting, and inspiring book. It’s what I would call a comfort book–a book I know I’ll want to read again and again over the years, bringing a feeling of comfort like a warm blanket wrapped around you on a cold night, and, when you’re finished it, a feeling of satisfaction and hunger eased. It’s one of those reads that I want to pass on to everyone.
Dog Lost
by Ingrid Lee
The Chicken House/Scholastic (September 2008)
ISBN-10: 0545085780, ISBN-13: 978-0545085786
Ages 9-12
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
“Here,” a voice grunted. “Tried to cash in my chips and ended up with this for my trouble. Mind you don’t let it chew up my shoes.”
A wet lump landed on Mackenzie’s bed. Seconds later the door slammed. The bedroom was black again.
Mackenzie curled away from the damp wigth that trembled on top of the blanket. He could feel hot air whistle past his ear. He could smell fear. And he could make out the splotches of white. When he found the courage to touch one of them, it crumpled in his hand like heavy silk.
It was an ear, a soft, silky ear.
Something began to whack against his leg. Mackenzie figured it out. A tail was beating against his leg. The prod in his tummy was a paw. And the cold, dry poke under his neck, well, that was a nose.
The thing on his bed was a dog. A dog! His father had thrown a dog on the bed.
In the dark, Mackenzie lay still, holding the ear slightly. Just as he was getting used to the soft way it folded in his fingers, the dog licked his chin, a slurpy ice-cream lick.
–Dog Lost by Ingrid Lee, p. 1-2.
11-year-old Mackenzie lives with his abusive father–but his father does something wonderful when he brings Mackenzie home a pit bull puppy he won after gambling. Mackenzie and Cash quickly bond and provide comfort to each other–until Mackenzie’s father takes Cash away in the trunk of his car and dumps her somewhere. Mackenzie and Cash both try to find each other, each going through their own trials. The situation gets more desperate when the city decides to outlaw all stray pit bulls and put them to sleep. Cash has a good and big heart, and this helps her be just where she needs to be.
Dog Lost has bits of pain, abuse, and trauma mixed into the story, but there is so much hope, so many kind acts, and so many people coming together in the end, that the good feeling is what a reader will take away with them. Also, even in some of the painful descriptions there is beauty in the writing, which may help the reader get some distance.
Lee starts off with Mackenzie’s first meeting with his new dog, Cash, and the lovely way they get to know each other, finding comfort in each other. This relationship builds, and we see the love between them, and believe it. This bond helps offset Mackenzie’s abusive father–until his father throws Cash away. Then we want Cash and Mackenzie to find each other again–and this desire, also woven into the text, propels the story forward at a fast pace as we race to see whether Mackenzie and Cash will have a happy ending.
Mackenzie and Cash are both likable characters. Cash only fights back to try to protect his boy, Mackenzie, and later works to protect others. Cash clearly has a big heart. Mackenzie does his best to try to protect Cash, and later to find Cash. Most of the characters are likable, even ones that don’t play a huge roll.
Lee ingeniously pulls characters from all over and slowly draws them together through small acts of kindness (or, in a few cases, cruelty) towards key moments where many of them intersect. You can actually see the characters and events coming together, little clues and scenes pulling the characters forward, as if inevitably. It is so well crafted, and brings a sense of community, hope, and the feeling that the world is a good place. When Lee changes viewpoint and takes us to another character, she often eases us into it by linking things from the last scene, or the setting, so that the reader is eased into the new voice, follows, and wants to read on.
Lee takes us into Cash’s–the dog’s–point of view and story, as well as Mackenzie’s and some of the other characters, and this increases our caring about the characters and wanting a happy ending. It also helps the reader care immensely about Cash–a pit bull–and to want to defend her against the characters who judge her solely by her breed.
Lee sprinkles backstory into the text–just enough to help us understand why things are important. She also uses foreshadowing a few times to draw the reader forward, or to help the reader feel like they know something about the scene coming up, which works well.
One small thing that bothered me after reading–I thought that Abi, the girl on the train, was young, perhaps Mackenzie’s age; i didn’t realize, til near the end, that she was older. Also, a few times the story felt like it was teaching us–a little too hard–that pit bulls are good animals, and that it’s only when they’re taught to attack that they might attack, and that it’s people’s misconceptions that are the problem. I would have liked this toned down just a little. Sometimes, especially in the section with the “newspaper articles”, it felt preachy, and in the section with the Humane Society statement, we lost the character over the message. But that was quite brief.
Lee uses language beautifully, and at times poetically–drawing the reader in and saying so much at the same time through vivid metaphors. I love her use of language. There are two villains in the story, and it is satisfying that neither of them win and neither of them have happy endings.
The bond between the boy and the dog are so strong, and ultimately this helps save one of their lives–perhaps both–which is moving. So many threads are pulled together nicely–side or background characters that we still care about are given their own happy endings, and things come together in a way that seems perfect. The ending is moving and feel-good, and all the characters come together in a beautifully orchestrated way. To me it was like reading genius.
Dog Lost is a story that’s sure to become a favorite. Highly recommended!
The End of the Beginning: Being the Adventures of a Small Snail (and an Even Smaller Ant)
by Avi, illustrated by Tricia Tusa
Harcourt (April 2008) (paperback edition)
ISBN-10: 0152055320, ISBN-13: 9780152055325
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
“I’ve been living here,” said the ant, “for a whole year, and you have never once said hello.”
“I am sorry,” replied Avon. “But there was never anyone around to introduce us.”
“I kept telling myself you were just being polite,” said the ant. “And I’m glad to learn I was right. Still, if you have ever noticed, while it’s awkward to say hello without introductions, one can always say good-bye.”-
-The End of the Beginning by Avi, p. 18.
I love humor when it tickles my funny bone. The End of the Beginning really appealed to me, and I think it will appeal both to young children for the incredible silliness and young child’s sense of humor, as well as to adults for the bits of deep wisdom and truisms that are woven throughout the story.
Avon, a snail who loves to read, gets really sad because he’s never had an adventure like all the characters he’s read about in books. So he decides to find himself an adventure, and he, along with Edward, an ant who’s lived in his house for a year but who he’s never spoken to, set out to find adventures, traveling slowly at Avon’s snail pace. They come to the end of a branch, meet up with a mouse they decide is a dragon in disguise, teach a cricket to sing a different song, and race another snail. They return home (which they think is an enchanted castle) happy, and each a friend richer.
I love the way the story opens, with Avon the snail reading books and enjoying them; this is a validation of readers and book lovers. From there, Avi moves us into tongue-in-cheek humor and playful silliness with sense turned on its head, and, woven throughout it all, bits of wisdom and truth. There are truths that children will easily pick up on, and truths and humor that will resonate more with older readers and adults. The silliness is innocent, young, and appears on most pages, making the book light and easy to read.
Some of the silliness stems from advice that starts out making sense and then gets convoluted but still feels like it almost makes sense: “If it’s going to be tomorrow, it might as well be today. And if it is today, it could have been yesterday. And if it was yesterday, then you’re over and done with it…” Other silliness comes from turning sense upside down and inside out: “‘Well,’ said the ant, ‘if i don’t have a right answer, at least I’ll have a wrong one.’ ‘As long as it’s an answer,’ said Avon, ‘I can use it….’
The bits of wisdom feel profound, and are all the more powerful because of their simplicity–you can see something from a different perspective than others, but you may still be singing the same song, thus can still relate; if you run about crazily trying to get something done, it will probably take you as long as it would if you do something steadily and slowly; you can change the way a place feels or looks by the way you look at it, seeing the world with your heart, not your eyes.
Avi keeps up the humor and tone throughout the entire book, sometimes more successfully than others. Fittingly, there are references to ends and beginnings sprinkled throughout the story. The chapters feel almost self contained; I think they would work well being read aloud each night. At times there were chapters that didn’t move the story forward, and that seemed to have no purpose; I found those chapters almost irritating. They also seemed to lack the bits of wisdom that were sprinkled throughout the rest of the chapters. Though the humor was delicious, at times it became wearing, especially when it felt like there was no point to the chapter; it gave that chapter an empty feeling, but those chapters were the minority. Most of the humor feels fresh and alive, but I found myself disappointed when they Avon and Edward arrive home and don’t recognize their own home, but assume it’s an enchanted home, since I’ve seen a very similar vein in a few children’s books (the titles are alluding me right now). Still, overall, the book was a delight to read. Sweet, funny line drawings accompany the text, punctuating important scenes and making the characters come more alive.
This is a light, funny story with great truths. The paperback edition is a nice pocket-sized book, easy to hold. The double-spaced lines make it easy and quick to read. The End of the Beginning is a good-hearted book. Recommended.
The end of the beginning comes out in paperback in April 2008, and the sequel, A Beginning, a Muddle, and an End: The Right Way to Write Writing
also comes out in April in hardcover.
Want more books?
Go to Teen Books or Picture Books to find another great book.
Megiddo's Shadow by Arthur Slade, Wendy Lamb Books, 2006
Arthur Slade dedicates this novel to the memory of the five Slade men who served in World War I, his great grandfather, grandfather and great uncles. The dates of the youngest one jump out at the reader, "Private Percy James Slade, 1897-1918 (KIA.)
If my memory serves, I do not think there is a village or town in France and England that does not have a memorial to the fallen of The Great War. World War I does not loom as large in the memory of Americans. In Megiddo's Shadow, Slade takes the reader to a lesser known front of that war, to Palestine in the Middle East.
Sixteen-year-old Edward Bathe leaves his farm in Saskatchewan, Canada and joins the army after receiving the news that his beloved older brother Hector has been killed in France. All he wants to do is get to the front and kill the Hun who took his brother's life but upon arrival in England he is transfered to the Fifth Imperial Remount unit to break horses. He chafes at the assignment but does meet a horse who will be part of his future when he is reassigned to the Lincolnshire Yeomanry. Slade describes the role of these units on his website :
Yeomanry were different than cavalry--they were trained to be foot soldiers and mounted soldiers. The idea was that they could ride quickly to their destination and dismount and fight. Or they could charge. They were even taught to get their horses to lay down, so they could use them as cover. The regiment was also trained to use the sword or lance in a charge.
Edward and his horse, Buke become part of the British Expeditionary Force in Palestine. The description of desert warfare is unforgettable.
A month later, in July, I was sent to hell...
...We fed and watered our horses, working through the night because the day would be too hot for us to lift a finger. As the sun rose, it revealed a desolation only the Devil could've dreamed up: a low, flat valley of white marl and salt, spotted with swamp, stony plain, patches of dense scrub, and a thin layer of dry grass. The land had never know rain. Lumps of dried flesh--dead camels--lay here and there as though dropped from the sky, a sky that had never seen a cloud. A hot breath of wind drove the salty dust into my eyes. Occasionally, a thirteen-pounder gun would roar just to let the Turks know that His Majesty's troops were still here.
Very much a classic boy-goes-to-war novel in the tradition of
The Red Badge of Courage,
All Quiet on the Western Front
or
Fallen Angels, Edward experiences the comradeship of soldiers, a first love and the grim reality of warfare. He faces the loss of those he loves and his faith in God as he struggles to find meaning and survive.
Slade relates his grandfather and great uncles' true
stories on his website. They are as gripping and heartfelt as the novel and are very much the inspiration for this book. The letter Edward and his father receive about Hector is taken almost verbatim from the real letter the Slade family received about Percy Slade.
Moving, emotional and wrenching at times, this is historical fiction at its finest. I will be reading more of Arthur Slade's writing in the future.
Arthur Slade blogs at
Arthur Slade: Writing for Young Adults.
Megiddo's Shadow TrailerArthurSlade.com
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Wow, I’m a sucker for a good dog story that doesn’t end in death for the dog. I’m reserving this at the library right now!
Good, Lisa; you won’t regret it. It’s a wonderful book!