An entertaining, sometimes-dramatic glimpse into the life of a search-and-rescue dog.
In Troy’s middle-grade series entry, a trained service dog has adventures with his owner.
Dylan is a cocker spaniel whose owner, Casey, works hard to train him as a search-and-rescue dog. Dylan is smaller than typical animals in the field, but he’s smart and has an intuitive relationship with Casey. Dylan attends “Dream Big K-9 Academy,” where he’s trained by Roger, the academy’s owner. Sumo, Casey’s best friend, is a social media guru who promotes Dylan online to a growing fandom called “Dylan’s Dog Squad”: “ ‘Look this way, Dylan,’ yelled Sumo, taking the picture. ‘We’ve got to keep Dylan’s Dog Squad informed. Your fans want to see you.’ ” Soon, Dylan’s intuitive abilities are needed to find a dog named Lily in a practice search on Catalina Island. Although another dog-in-training is distracted by a skunk, causing chaos, Dylan saves the day. A promotional event at an ice cream shop turns into a free-for-all when Sumo accidentally promotes free ice cream in a social media post. Despite all the humorous antics, Dylan also accomplishes serious rescues, as when he finds a missing 6-year-old orphan named Luca. Troy uses italics to denote Dylan’s thoughts in one-sided pseudo-conversations with Casey throughout the book, which effectively gives Dylan a relatable, humanlike personality. One example shows Dylan’s hesitancy getting on a seesaw: “ ‘You’ve done the seesaw lots of times in Agility class.’ Casey gently turned Dylan’s muzzle toward him. ‘What’s the big deal?’ The seesaw is scary. It moves up and down.” Troy also employs occasional moments of humor that will appeal to the book’s young target audience: “Trotting behind Roger, Dylan studied the backs of his ragged tennis shoes. It would be so easy to nip your ankles.”
An entertaining, sometimes-dramatic glimpse into the life of a search-and-rescue dog.Pub Date: March 30, 2022
ISBN: 979-8442511635
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
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