Review by Booklist Review
Gr. 4-6. In the tradition of both Lassie and Oliver Twist, a character searches for home in a harsh world. On a California ranch, the stray pup begins to learn to herd sheep, and that dream of work stays with him after a fire destroys the ranch and he is sold to a pet store. He finds some kindness with a series of owners, and he even falls in love, but he also endures wretched cruelty, especially when he refuses to dance for a brutal circus master. Finally, he saves the life of a lost orphan boy, bonds with him, and helps find a family for them both. The classic foundling story is beautifully told in the dog's simple, first-person voice, which captures the canine's struggle for food, shelter, and love, as well as the suffering of the homeless pair awaiting adoption, and, finally, the blissful homecoming. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2006 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A Border collie, Jack, narrates his story of multiple homes, owners and names in this flawed outing by Hobbs (Tender; Defiance). When lightning destroys the California sheep ranch of his puppyhood, Jack is sold to a pet shop. He flees his mismatched adoptive family, then drifts from one human to another. Ever hopeful of reconnecting with the higher calling of his breed (herding sheep), Jack settles over "a good many dog years" for food and companionship. There's a happy interlude with the itinerant "Goat Man" and a hardscrabble turn with a pair of homeless thieves. Jack performs in a circus run by the brutal Billy, and falls in love with the baleful, elegant dog Tiffany. When (another) fire breaks out, Jack herds an angry elephant away from the fleeing crowd, then escapes (with Tiffany's maudlin blessing); eventually his good turn with an orphan helps Jack, too, land the perfect home-a sheep ranch. Much strains credulity here: Jack's hard times and heroics evoke not so much the likes of Lad: A Dog or The Incredible Journey, as the bathos of a Disney feature. While Hobbs captures some doggy details well (such as Jack's preoccupation with smells), stereotypical characters, the too-human narration, and Jack's unsettling habit of referring to characters by inferred names (e.g., Hollerin, Retardo), ultimately detract from the thrust of the tale. Ages 8-12. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-5-With a sure hand, Hobbs develops an engaging story told through the eyes of a border collie whose purposeful existence on Bob and Ellen's sheep ranch ends abruptly after a fire. From that point the canine's name changes as he moves from person to person, situation to situation. Some are tolerable: the Goat Man talks philosophically as he journeys nowhere in particular along the highway. Others are intolerably cruel: when the dog refuses to perform a humiliating act, the circus trainer beats him mercilessly. The character of the dog is sympathetically delineated through realistic observations and plot developments, and readers will be drawn into his story. The resolution-his connection to an orphan boy who also finds a home-is both believable and satisfying. This title will have appeal for independent readers searching for a shorter book; it will also make a strong read-aloud choice for a broad range of grade levels. It's a winner.-Lee Bock, Glenbrook Elementary School, Pulaski, WI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A Border collie, down on his luck, searches for his life's work: a few good sheep. The agreeable narrator goes through a series of names, but the various monikers given him clearly have little effect on his own supremely confident sense of self ("He had to know how smart I was. I'm a Border collie, after all"). After a brief taste of fulfillment on a sheep ranch, the narrator is sold to a pet shop, then to an obnoxious little girl. From there, he meets up with a philosophizing Beat vagabond, a pair of drifters and a vicious circus owner before finding Luke, an orphan and fellow lost soul who names him Jack. While Jack's narration lacks the spot-on eagerness of Cynthia Voigt's Angus and Sadie (2005) or the in-the-skin reach for realism of Ann Martin's A Dog's Life (2005), what it lacks in doggie authenticity it makes up for in sass. The attitude that carries Jack through adventure after adventure to nothing short of a fairy-tale ending--complete with sheep--will win readers over and keep them rooting for him all the way. (Fiction. 8-12) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
