A Dog Called Homeless

by Sarah Lean

Being a dog-lover, the cover-page caught my eye. The font size and the spacing between the sentences makes this a comfortable book for children to read. This beautiful book introduces children to the need of care and love for other living beings.

The book begins rather solemnly.

“My name is Cally Louise Fisher and I have not spoken for 31 days…”.

As the story progresses, we find out this story is about a little girl who lost her mother at an early age and she starts seeing her everywhere she goes. Dressed in a red raincoat, her mother appeared in the cemetery, school ground and other places. Add to this, a friendly wolfhound also made appearances often in unexpected places.

She tries to tell her family members about seeing her mum with the hound, but no one seems to understand her. Meanwhile Cally participated in the sponsorship program for silence held at school and took it rather seriously. Cally moves into a new neighbourhood and becomes best friends with Sam, who is dumb and deaf. We later come to find out that a homeless man named Jed is the owner of the wolfhound. He holds the key to the recovery of her family from her mother's death.

Cally names the wolfhound Homeless. Without giving away any spoilers, let me tell you that the story ends with a surprise twist.

Sarah Lean has beautifully portrayed the feelings of a 6^th grade girl who lost mother and successfully shows you how pets can heal your heart. The story is accompanied with fantastic illustrations by Gary Blythe. The book has won Schneider Family Book Award for Middle School Books in 2013.

Age group – 9 yrs – 14yrs

Comments

For the Life of Laetitia - A Book Review

For the Life of Laetitia by Merle Hodge For the Life of Laetitia - Front Cover For the Life of Laetitia I am glad I bought this book. For the Life of Laetitia is a must-have in our children’s collection. I u sually do not go for those books that has a smaller font size and a very little spacing between the lines like in this book or suggest it for children either, but this is an exceptional book and I recommend it for your children. Once in a while let our kids drop those fantasy books and read some realistic stuff like these. The language is simple and vocabulary is easy to understand even for the young readers. In short, I got hooked to it as soon as I started reading. For the Life of Laetitia- Back Cover In For the Life of Laetitia , Merle Hodge has beautifully captured the dreams and life of Laetitia, a young Caribbean girl, who became the first one ever in her family to attend secondary school. In spite of poverty and racism she strives to a...

To Kill a Mocking Bird - A Book Review

To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee To Kill a Mocking Bird- Harper Lee To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee is one of the best classics of modern American literature. Published in 1960, it rounds up an event happened when the author was 10. She brings to light the culture, tradition and the lifestyle of her family and the neighbourhood in her hometown in Alabama during 1936. The narrative by Harper Lee explains in languid manner the childhood events of Jean Louise and her brother Jeremy. It starts off explaining how her brother got a crooked arm and went on like any simple childhood story with friends and summer time adventures including peeking into a strange and lonely house where the inhabitant never left the house for years. By the flow of the story one would assume that the story is about the characters getting acquainted with an odd character Arthur, whom they have only heard about but not met. Slowly the author takes a turn connecting serious aspec...

One Dog and His Boy - A Book Review

One Dog and His Boy by Eva Ibbotson Yet another pet story book for discussion. One Dog and His Boy is a story of friendship between a boy and a dog. Hal, the little boy was brought up by rich parents in a mansion. His parents gave him everything a boy needs or wants, except for the care or attention he wanted. Though Hal had everything, he was lonely in that big mansion with immaculate interiors that his mother changed following the latest trends. Nothing seemed real and he longed for some real companion and a childhood with real friends and fun. Hal had always wanted a dog of his own, to pet, to play, to cuddle and asked his parents to get a dog as his birthday present. As his style and cleanliness obsessive mother does not want dog’s hair on her carpet or paw marks on her wooden floors and doors, his pleading for such a birthday present fell into deaf ears. His mother’s knacky- wacky idea of dressing up a man l...

House of Stories - A Book Club for Children

Search This Blog