Vibrant stories that should amuse readers who love valiant dogs.
Antijo relates the heroic and often funny adventures of a family of Labrador retrievers in this debut book.
“There are prodigies in the dog world,” the author states in the preface to this collection of interconnected stories. Several of those canine geniuses just happen to be the ancestors of Deuce Clarence Jones, a purebred chocolate Lab. Although the dogs’ names are all real, their escapades are fictional. The first tale relates how Bubbling Bedouine, the Finnish national champion, escapes from the World Global Dog Show to woo Tendercare Muskelunge Debbie, a black Lab. Her chocolate puppies come as quite a surprise to her owners. Subsequent yarns follow one of their puppies, Tendercare Bubbling “Bucky” Buckeye, and then his puppy, Skaggs Westwood Gus. The animals’ monikers may be a mouthful, but the human characters also sport grandiose names, such as Eustis Izzielustus, a failed dog handler–turned-deckhand, and Robbier Rafferty, an unlucky bank robber. These lighthearted stories are bound to elicit more than a few laughs as they showcase the felicitous qualities and bravery of these dogs; Bucky uses his powerful nose to sniff out a thief on a plane, and Gus rescues the hapless Eustis when he falls overboard. The tales take the reader from the Snow Hotel, where getting out of bed without slippers can result in getting stuck to the icy floor, to Niagara Falls on April Fools’ Day, when daredevils are allowed to jump over the falls or ride down them in a barrel. Antijo shares intriguing details about breeding and showing champion dogs as well as captaining a cargo ship, running a fishing trawler, and even collecting pollen for drug companies. The variety of situations holds the reader’s interest, although the text can sometimes veer toward overexplanation and become repetitive, a minor flaw. The first in a series, the book ends with the arrival of Deuce Clarence Jones and a slight cliffhanger.
Vibrant stories that should amuse readers who love valiant dogs.Pub Date: June 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4834-5171-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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