To Be Saved

Before you hear the clicking of toenails on floors, the jingle of metal tags announces a shift in position.  Their intention is to be as close as possible to you.  Comfort is a consideration but the bottom line is they want to be with their human.  We need them.  They need us.  We are better together.

The attachment between a dog and their human is remarkable for the reason we simply can't believe how steadfast their love and loyalty truly is.  It is humbling.  Operation Rescue Dog (Little Bee Books, September 18, 2018) written by Maria Gianferrari with illustrations by Luisa Uribe is about finding home in the heart of a dog and in the heart of a human.

Alma wears Mami's scarf like a hug.

Alma's mother is in the military in Iraq.  Alma has not heard her voice in three months.  They write letters but the exchanges between them take a long time to be delivered.

Lulu, an abandoned dog, with a half moon on her chest eats acorns and drinks from mud puddles to survive.  She is alone for weeks until she is saved.  Alma has an idea.  As a surprise for her Mami, she and her abuela are traveling to the Operation Rescue Dog site.

It is not a trip without setbacks for Alma and her grandmother and for Lulu.  Abuela and Alma are stopped by the side of the road.  A tire is flat, it storms and they wait.  Lulu waits too.  She is frightened of the unknown and the big truck.  When it stops, she runs.

First there is a sandwich and then joy.  First there is a rainbow and then hope.  A truck pulls into a parking lot.  A blue car joins other vehicles.  Dogs embark, hearts beat and the smell of home fills the air.


In a truly heartwarming portrait the words of Maria Gianferrari ring with authenticity.  Two parallel lives are depicted in alternating voices. Rich, sensory descriptions reference color, touch and smell.  Readers can easily identify with both the girl and the dog.  Here are two passages.

Lulu's curled in a crate.
Yowls echo.
Wind whistles.
The truck's floor hums.
Lulu sniffs the air.
It smells like . . . fear.

Abuela paces on the phone.
Alma plucks dandelions.
The air smells like rain.
The blue car must wait.


The opened dust jacket features both Alma and Lulu.  Mami's scarf is wrapped around both of them

like a hug.

Their affection for each other is evident.  To the left, on the back, the two of them are lying on their backs in the same grassy field surrounded by yellow dandelions.  The scarf supplies a literal connection.  With eyes closed, they are completely content.  A caption reads

Can a dog feel like a hug?

Using the colors from Mami's scarf, illustrator Luisa Uribe forms a scene on the opening and closing endpapers, this image features multiple dogs and humans at the site of the arrival of the Operation Dog Rescue truck.  You can readily imagine all the chatter and barking dogs.  In the first picture Alma and her abuela are running from the upper, left-hand corner.  Mary with Lulu waits in the lower, right-hand corner.  On the final endpapers there are subtle differences.  Many forever moments are being forged.

Luisa Uribe uses double-page pictures and single-page visuals to showcase first Lulu drinking from a mud puddle on the title page, to the Operation Rescue Dog truck driving down the highway at sunrise and then beginning the narrative on another two-page illustration highlighting Alma in her bedroom.  In Luisa's delicate details more of the story is told.  There is a picture on the wall of Alma and her mother in a military uniform.  In the following two-page illustration we see Lulu in various positions in the dark of night, alone and finally howling at the moon.

To supply readers with insight into emotional moods of both Alma and Lulu the point of view is shifted.  We are brought near to Lulu with her tail curled under her body in fear as she awaits her fate.  We are shown Abuela looking at the flat tire and Alma seated in the back.  Their car looks small compared to the vast landscape behind them.  Just as we have the wordless image at the front of the book of the truck on the highway, a second wordless illustration closes this book.  It's perfect.

One of my many favorite illustrations is on a single page.  The Operation Rescue Dog truck is speeding down the highway.  We zoom in on the cab.  Lulu in Mary's lap is leaning out the open window.  Birds fly overhead.  Billowing clouds nearly fill the blue sky above rolling hills.  Along the bottom the grass is dotted with flowers.


Readers and listeners will find themselves drawn into the story of Alma and Lulu in Operation Rescue Dog written by Maria Gianferrari with illustrations by Luisa Uribe.  By alternating the perspectives in both the narrative and pictures we are immediately tied to both the girl and the dog.  We cheer with all our hearts for the resolution.  At the close of the book Maria Gianferrari shares the story of her beloved rescue dog, Becca, as well as explaining more about rescue dogs (and rescue animals).  She includes websites and other options to assist in helping these animals.  A glossary of Spanish words used in the story is added at the end.  You'll want to have this title on both your personal and professional bookshelves.

To learn more about both Maria Gianferrari and Luisa Uribe and their other work, please follow the links attached to their names to access their websites.  Both Maria and Luisa are on Instagram.  Luisa maintains an account on Twitter.  Maria is featured on As the Eraser Burns.  Luisa is a guest on KIDLIT411.  At a publisher's website you can view interior images.


Maria Gianferrari loves dogs, especially her rescue dog, Becca.  She loves them so much that all of her fiction picture books published thus far contain a dog main character!  As an animal lover, Maria has been rescuing creatures unofficially all her life.  Her most recent rescue was a five-lined skunk stranded in her cellar.  She lives in Leesburg, Virginia with Becca, her scientist husband and artist daughter.

To Be Given A Second Chance

Whether we are ready for them or not, troubles, small or large, manage to find a way into our lives.  Hardly ever, in batches of threes or constantly, day after day, they shape who we are.  Each individual will face these challenges differently; the best they can with what they know at any given time.

For children, without the years of experience adults have, it can be truly frightening.  Fortunately for many there are humans and canines willing to provide assistance.  Released in August of this year, Mountain Dog (Henry Holt and Company) written by Margarita Engle with illustrations by Olga and Aleksey Ivanov is one of those books on my shelves I've wanted to read for months.  Closing the cover as I finished it yesterday, I paused in gratitude for this remarkable story, wishing I had read it earlier.


In my other life there were pit bulls.
The puppies weren't born vicious,
but Mom taught them how to bite,
turning meanness into money,
until she got caught.

She said she will and she does; the social worker finds a relative eleven-year-old Tony does not know he has.  A great-uncle, Tio Leonilo, a forest ranger, a search-and-rescue member, willingly takes him to live in his two-room cabin, high in the remote Sierra Nevada mountains while his mom is in prison.  Gabe, his chocolate Labrador retriever, is trained as a search-and-rescue dog.

Much like a dream, the exact opposite of the world he has known in Los Angeles, Tony's life is a series of contrasts; his uncle's unexpected kindness compared to his mother's indifference, Gabe's playful loyalty versus the memories of claws, fangs and blood, and the meanness of the city streets replaced with the majestic calm found in the mountains and forest.  School is housed in three rooms, three grades, sixth through eighth, are in one group.

Tony's days are filled with attending class, surprisingly free of gangs and bullies, learning how to understand and navigate in the wilderness, the Pacific Crest Trail, search-and-rescue training and Cowboy Church.  His mind is constantly torn between his growing love for Tio and Gabe and the nightmares haunting him about his former life.  Visits to the prison leave him deeply saddened; his mother usually choosing not to appear.  Several rescues begin to reshape his outlook; as those lost are found Tony's thoughts begin to have a focus, a purpose.

Summer vacation finds Tony spending time with B. B., a bear researcher and friend of his uncle's.  She is also the grandmother of a rather vocal but not unfriendly girl in his class, Gracie. While Tony is with B. B., Gracie is back in India with her parents who are studying elephants.

During hunting season in the fall, a search takes a harrowing turn. Hard lessons are learned.  Decisions are made.  Love provides shelter, the hope of a new future.


All day as I continued to reflect on this book, I though how much of our lives are composed of poetry; how moments are remembered in fragments or phrases.  Reading a novel in verse like Mountain Dog is a bit like being a leaf in a stream.  A stream has a current moving around rocks, sand, grasses, branches or trees.  The leaf navigates around those objects, slowly or quickly, at times resting.  As a reader you need to step in, adjusting to the cadence, the flow, created by the author's use of words.

Margarita Engle draws you into her story with her gifted command of language, alternating chapters in Tony's and Gabe's voices.  Single thoughts, incidents and outcomes are beautifully described, painting vivid pictures of place and people in your mind which travel straight to your heart.  Each person comes with their own stories into Tony's life; stories filled with riches money can't buy.  With her characters Engle shows readers (and Tony) how people through choice can turn trials into triumphs. Here are a few passages from the book.

He had to learn how to survive
by eating seaweed, drinking rain,
and breathing hope...

That night when Tio asks me
about my first day of school, I don't
say much, so he takes me outdoors
in the darkness
to stargaze.
Without any traffic or streetlights,
the forest seems ancient.
I feel like a time traveler
in a distant land
where I don't know
the language
of star shapes. 
Constellations.
Pictures in the sky.
Myths. Stories. Directions.
A way to find north or south
by following a path 
made of light years.

...It's an odor that rhymes
with the weight of aloneness,
so I press my head against the palm
of his hand, hoping to help him feel
the floating lightness
of never-lonely.

The artwork of Olga and Aleksey Ivanov done entirely in black and white with the exception of the cover, compliments important portions of the narrative.  Most of the illustrations offer a close-up perspective of the subject.  My favorite is of Gabe's head nudging Tony's hand opposite the passage I've noted above.


A story of redemption on many levels vividly depicted in a rhythm kindred to our beating hearts; Mountain Dog written by Margarita Engle with illustrations by Olga and Aleksey Ivanov is a compelling, memorable book.  It is a moving portrayal of a boy whose mother is in prison but ultimately is raised up by a dog and people who believe in him, who give him hope through their love.  I highly recommend you read this book and share it immediately with others.

To learn more about Margarita Engle and Olga and Aleksey Ivanov please follow the links embedded in their names to their websites.  This is a link to the publisher's website highlighting the title and giving you a glimpse of eight illustrations from the book.  Please follow this link to a fascinating interview at Watch. Connect. Read. hosted by teacher librarian John Schumacher.

Pick Me...Please

Knowing real life does not always end happily ever after, makes looking for a silver lining all the more important.  It also makes those moments when everything seems perfectly in place all the sweeter.  A single decision can tip the scales.

So many depend, so much depends, on the myriad decisions each of us makes on a daily basis.  With the pet population in shelters ever growing, a choice to adopt may mean the difference between life or death for one of the temporary residents.  Using events from her own life, author Meg Kearney has created Trouper (Scholastic Press) with illustrations by Caldecott Honor Book winner, E. B. Lewis.  

Back in the before time, 

before I licked your nose

or sniffed your shoes,

before you bought my bed and bowl,

before the place you picked me out,

I ran with a mob of mutts.

Though free to roam, survival is hard for a group of dogs, living on the streets, scrounging for food in the garbage left by humans, and evading the rocks thrown by boys.  When offered the choice of eating steak, they readily enter the back of a stranger's truck.  Taken to a place with dogs, cages and dogs in cages, this canine company is separated.  Eight plus one now receiving food and water are no longer running at will.

Day after day people walk along the row of cages.  One by one the number nine drops until only one remains, Trouper.  No one wants a dog with three legs. 

Someone sees beyond the three legs.  Someone sees the kind soul shining through those big eyes.  Someone wants this last dog.  It's a boy.  A boy whose compassion far exceeds the meanness of those others.  

Now he has his own bowl.  Now he has his own bones.  Now he has his own bed.  Trouper can hardly believe his good fortune.  The best thing of all is a game he and his boy play.  It's a game called...

In 2005 Trooper (his given name) was moved from a shelter in Puerto Rico to live in New Hampshire with author, poet, Meg Kearney.  Written in verse, narrated by Trouper, she imagines how life might have been for this dog; waiting for the right person to notice him.  His voice describes each incident in accurate canine awareness.  Here is another example.

We got water and kibble

from the lady who cared for us.

We got walks,

but wished

we could race

the way we used to.

Everything about the front jacket and cover beckons the reader to open this book.  You don't know what the circumstances are yet, but it's easy to see the boy is with a forever friend.  Rendered in watercolor, the artwork of E.B. Lewis is nearly photographic in capturing the essence of the subjects; each is rich with emotion.  

Nearly all of the illustrations span two pages.  The smaller vignettes and single page pictures convey loss of freedom, sadness, hopelessness, individual dog personalities, and love.  Lewis' dogs are so lifelike you expect them to start barking any minute.  My favorite illustration is of Trouper enjoying his first meal in his new home, bowls on mats, with his boy kneeling, chin resting in his hands as he watches his new pal.  The play of sunlight streaming into the room, the angle used to portray the two friends, the placement of other items in the room, all combine to create a feeling of intimacy.

Trouper written by Meg Kearney with paintings by E.B. Lewis is a very special book; a labor of love about love.  The blend of narrative and illustrations compliment and enhance one another to tell a story of a bond formed by an act of kindness.  It's about the magic of second chances.  This title is meant to be shared often. 

To The Rescue

We all need to be rescued from time to time whether it's once in a blue moon or if life is topsy-turvy, daily.  It can be as simple as helping to banish a bad mood or as critical as performing the Heimlich maneuver on someone choking.  Frequently we are well aware when we provide assistance to a person in need but on occasion the smallest gesture in word or deed, can make a significant difference without our knowledge.

Members of the animal kingdom are no different than we when it comes to needing human intervention. Having no voice our vigilance is of the utmost importance.  In her first chapter book of 2013, White Fur Flying (Margaret K. McElderry Books), Patricia MacLachlan writes about the varied forms rescue can assume.


"Once upon a time there was a wicked queen," said my younger sister, Alice.

In the Cassidy family Alice is the talkative sister, an observer of life, a weaver of outlandish tales and a writer jotting her latest thoughts in a journal.  Daddy is a veterinarian with a huge heart.  Mama with an equally large heart, rescues Great Pyrenees.  Zoe, the narrator, while not as talkative as Alice misses little of the world around her; she sees and knows much.

Into the mix are Kodi and May, Pyrs.  May will soon leave for a new home.  A recent addition is Lena, an African grey parrot whose favorite phrase, repeated in a British accent is "You cahn't know!"  It seems Mama is not the only rescuer; Daddy seeing the need to save this feathered mimic.

As the story begins a new family has moved into the home across the street appearing to be pretty much the opposite of the Cassidy crew.  The suit-wearing Mr. Croft comes and goes silently in his big black car.  Prim, proper Mrs. Croft seems uncertain and slightly fearful.  A boy, Philip, Alice's age, does not talk.  Philip is staying with the Crofts until his parents can work out some problems they are having.

Within a couple of days, outgoing Alice, wise Zoe, warm Mrs. Cassidy and the two dogs have welcomed Philip into the supportive, loving fold of their lively summer.  Philip still does not speak (except to Kodi and Lena) but he is now smiling and laughing.  When Mrs. Croft accepts an invitation for a tea date at their home, a new understanding of their neighbors is revealed to the Cassidy family.

With May in her new home, Mama has rescued two more Great Pyreness, Callie an adult female and Jack, a young male.  Very soon though the rhythm of their days changes.  In the middle of a stormy night, two are missing, one canine and one unable to speak.

Three leave to search; Mama has Kodi but Zoe has only her knowledge of the truth to assist her.  By morning all that has been lost are thankfully recovered.  Understanding and compassion can and does heal, sometimes the rescued becomes the rescuer.


Consistently Patricia MacLachlan delivers stories reaching into your heart, shaping it and holding it warmly surrounded by love.  When you step into the world of the Cassidy family, narrated by the older Zoe with the added day-to-day dialogue between the characters, you can't help but want to be a part of that world too.  The importance of a dog's ability to heal and help, to sense and see, what some humans can't is at the essence of this tale.

Each of the short chapters carefully connects to the next with a single profound closing sentence or remark.  Through the technique of Alice's writing MacLachlan offers further insights into what she hopes readers will take away from this book.  Alice's poem, You Can't Know, and the final pages of the book taken from her journal are pure perfection.  One of my favorite passages is:

My voice sounded loud in the quiet kitchen.
No one said anything.
"He thinks many things. And those things are trapped inside of him.  Maybe something happened that made him afraid to talk," I said.
I looked out the window.
"Except to Kodi," I added softly.
"Kodi and Phillip are friends in some way we don't know about," said Daddy.  "And it doesn't have much to do with words."


Happily and with confidence give White Fur Flying written with impeccable, masterful skill by Patricia MacLachlan to fans of her work, to those people who love dog books, or to someone who might need rescuing.  This story shows family dynamics at their very finest; full of understanding for the personalities traits of one another.  Also, if we choose to view those around us with the same care as our canine companions, bridges can be built and crossed.