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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 like a dog to entertain him on his birthday made the matter worse with the boy. Hal did not eat for days and fell sick, which worried his parents. At last his Dad got him a rental dog from a kennel that rent dogs for a certain period, thinking Hal would get tired of dog quickly. Without knowing the trick, Fleck, the dog and Hal became best buddies. After the allowed period of time, the dog was taken away. Hal was determined to get him back and run away. 

The rest of the story explains Hal’s adventures in finding his dog, befriending a girl, and their struggle to get away from the search party Hal’s parents arranged to find Hal. What’s more, the whole pack of dogs turned out to help them and the journey becomes eventful ad interesting. As most of the stories, it has a happy ending. 

 The author has effortlessly described the friendship between a boy and a dog. Any kid would long for a pet in their childhood and dog is their favourite. It is said that a dog can in fact bring out the soft side of the human.
It teaches us love, care and responsibility and is exactly what happened in the life of a little boy who was brought up by rich and busy parents. Fleck and Hal became best friends. It is the rage towards his parents for doing wicked thing with him and Fleck that made him take that adventure. But then he understands that his mother, Albina is after all his mother and was only misguided. He decides to forgive her and forget the whole thing. The heart-touching story is written in a very simple English that any 9 year old can understand and has beautiful illustrations of dogs. The story mentions about different breeds of the dogs and their peculiarities, which might help a child to know more about dogs.


Age Group: 9 Years and Above


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