While the story is light on plot, it is an entertaining, light-hearted tale that reinforces man’s remarkably close...
An engineer dad uses computer technology to give the family dog a voice.
The Singer family’s golden retriever Samson the Second, better known as S2, tends to wander. One day, 7-year-old Ginger proclaims, “Daddy, give him a cell phone so he can call when he is lost!” This seemingly silly idea gets Jim’s creative juices flowing. As an engineer, Jim thinks about what it might be like if he could communicate with S2 remotely, using a small computer attached to the dog’s collar. Singer ponders the idea and it quickly becomes something of an obsession. He uses three weeks of vacation to develop, design and build a prototype of the device. The most compelling aspect of the fanciful tale is the fact that Jim devises a system that not only allows him to talk to S2, but allows S2 to “talk” as well, through movements S2 makes that trigger a voice simulation. During a family meeting, one of the children comes up with a name—TADS (“TAlking Dog System”). The story unfolds, demonstrating the impact TADS has on Jim, the upheaval it causes his family and the manner in which S2 copes with his new status as a canine celebrity. Along the way, the reader learns in small doses about human-canine interaction, how computer technology could some day apply to communicating with animals and the ins and outs of the patent process. While a “talking dog” may stretch the suspension of disbelief, it does add an element to the story that allows for intrigue and bursts of humor. S2 even exhibits a somewhat devious mind. The book has an authentic flavor as Lightstone depicts the trials and tribulations of developing TADS. A nice touch is the closing excerpt from a “speech” given by a VP of the fictional company that launches TADS, making the system seem all the more real.
While the story is light on plot, it is an entertaining, light-hearted tale that reinforces man’s remarkably close relationship with dogs.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1456391799
Page Count: 140
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A three-time Newbery Honor winner tells—in a memoir that is even more immediate and compelling than his novels—about his intimate relationship with Minnesota's north woods and the dog team he trained for Alaska's Iditarod.
Beginning with a violent natural incident (a doe killed by wolves) that spurred his own conversion from hunter and trapper to observing habitant of the forest, Paulsen draws a vivid picture of his wilderness life—where bears routinely help themselves to his dog's food and where his fiercely protective bantam adopts a nestful of quail chicks and then terrorizes the household for an entire summer. The incidents he recounts are marvelous. Built of concrete detail, often with a subtext of irony or mystery, they unite in a modest but telling self-portrait of a man who has learned by opening himself to nature—not to idyllic, sentimental nature, but to the harsh, bloody, life-giving real thing. Like nature, the dogs are uncontrollable: independent, wildly individual, yet loyal and dedicated to their task. It takes extraordinary flexibility, courage, and generosity to accept their difficult strengths and make them a team: Paulsen sees humor in their mischief and has learned (almost at the cost of his life) that rigid discipline is irrelevant, even dangerous. This wonderful book concludes with a mesmerizing, day-by-day account of Paulsen's first Iditarod—a thrilling, dangerous journey he was so reluctant to end that he almost turned back within sight of his goal. lt's almost as hard to come to the end of his journal.
This may be Paulsen's best book yet: it should delight and enthrall almost any reader.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1990
ISBN: 0-02-770221-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Bradbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1990
Any moral that may be gleaned from the tangled narrative is buried in confusion. (Fantasy. YA)
A convoluted fantasy offering a series of morals about justice, mercy, human treatment of animals and human treatment of other humans.
A cluster of animals have been educated by a World War II veteran and his activist wife. The animals, a now-vegetarian mix of carnivores, herbivores and omnivores, live in harmony on Cloudburst Mountain. Following their scriptures (the Bible, Animal Farm and judgments such as “Humans Are Evil”), they plan for the day when they will kill all the humans and rule the world. The tale follows the adventures of their coyote prophet Justice and human ally Cody as they travel the United States preparing other animals for “The Rebellion.” Though they meet mostly repellent, violent humans and mistreated animals, they also encounter enough well-meaning, victimized humans to make Cody question his alliance with the cause of human genocide. Meanwhile, the grandson of the original human missionaries to the animals threatens the entire endeavor as he plans to mine the mountain for uranium. Ultimately, the animals succeed in murdering the vast majority of the human race, giving them hope for a shining new day. This overly complex tale is dense with purple prose and far too many extraneous characters–for example, Gordon “Raindance” Fell, the Shadow Shaman of the Pokihallah tribe; and Forest Victor, who appears for the first time late in the story, saying of his never-mentioned-before dead wife, “if only her hatred of the evil deeds of the baby seal killers hadn’t drawn her and her cameras into a combative stance.”
Any moral that may be gleaned from the tangled narrative is buried in confusion. (Fantasy. YA)Pub Date: June 21, 2006
ISBN: 0-595-39274-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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