MORRIS AND BUDDY

A true story, aside from snatches of invented dialogue, this account centers on a young blind man’s determination to become less dependent on the whims and charity of others. Following up a 1927 newspaper article about the use of dogs to help disabled vets in Europe, Morris Frank traveled alone from Tennessee to Switzerland—though it meant being “mailed” like a package via American Express, being locked in his stateroom at night and other indignities—to meet two animal trainers and Buddy, a German Shepard. Following a challenging but successful regimen designed to help them bond and to develop mutual trust, man and dog returned to the U.S., where they founded a school for seeing-eye teams that is still in existence. Told in simple language and illustrated with staid but competently done illustrations, much enhanced by a section of photos at the end, this serviceable alternative to Eva Moore’s Buddy, the First Seeing Eye Dog (1996), illus by Don Bolognese, imparts revealing insights both into how blind people were treated prior to the past few decades, and how complex the job of a seeing eye dog is. (Nonfiction. 7-9)