By: Ann M. Martin
I loved this fantasy book about a stray dog, Squirrel, and her "tail" (haha) about her life as a stray. This is certainly not one of your typical "happy-go-lucky" stories about a dog. It is very sad and death does occur in the story.
What I thought was intriguing is the story is from the point-of-view of Squirrel. I've never read a story like this and it was very interesting. I actually imagined myself as a dog while reading and tried,using imagery, to put myself into Squirrel's life. This is not the kind of life someone would want for a dog. This life is very sad, lonely, even desperate.
Whether the author tried or not, she was really effective in getting me very emotional and attached to Squirrel. There were times when I was reading that I actually was almost teary-eyed. This poor dog needed to catch a break. She didn't have a home and had to scrounge for food in the winter. Whenever she got comfortable, she was seen by someone about town and was forced to go on the run again.
I was reading some reviews of this book on the web and sometimes I agree and sometimes I don't. There was one review, in particular, that shed a new light on the character, Squirrel. The review basically said that for such the hardship Squirrel went through in the story, you would have thought she would have been a harsher dog-one that was not so sweet and forgiving. This review said that Martin (the author) didn't do a good job showing how Squirrel would really have felt due to her having a rough life. I don't know what to think about this review. In a way, I agree with it, but I don't think this took away from the story at all. Maybe there's a reason why Martin insisted on Squirrel being the sweet dog that she is no matter what she went through in her life.
No comments:
Post a Comment