The Puppy Place Guide to Puppies

Ellen Miles has written a companion guide to her hugely popular The Puppy Place series about the Peterson family who rescue and foster homeless dogs. Her guide includes chapters on finding the right dog for your family and where to find one, getting ready for the new puppy or dog and meeting your new friend’s basic needs of food, water, exercise and housetraining. There is a very good chapter on making it easy for your dog to be a good dog. She talks about using positive reinforcement instead of punishment: reward the good, ignore the bad. Instructions are given to teach your dog to SIT as well as instructions to teach your dog a simple trick. She includes a chapter on the importance of regular veterinary visits and what to ask the  vet. The chapter called Fun, Loving and Understanding includes a graphic called “ How to Speak Dog”. One of the main ways dogs communicate is with body language. Ellen Miles has a handy, dandy visual guide. The final chapter deals with the unexpected: a lost dog and death. Interspersed throughout the book are little vignettes from many of her Puppy Place books.

There is plenty of good information aimed at second to fourth graders and some good reminders for their parents, too.

This is another book that according to Amazon has a publication date in the future (April 1, 2013), so as of today the libraries do not have copies. It is available at the Yulupa Book Fair or online until March 17th at Scholastic/bvusd.

Monday’s Trip to the Book Fair

Yulupa School is hosting a Scholastic book Fair this week. I had a bit of a list but bought a few other books that caught my eye. I’ll be reviewing the books one by one but I thought I’d let you see what I bought today.

AR level 4.3, 3 points.

AR level 2.9, 3 points

5.3 AR, 5 points

AR 3.2, 0.5 points

AR 1.5, 0.5 points

The following books currently have no AR grade level and test:

As usual, my purchases are heavy on dog books. I also couldn’t resist  a new Fly Guy book or the sequel to a book I just reviewed and one I first read in 1957.

Dogs at the Book Fair

We love dogs around here, so the first bo0ks I checked out at the Book Fair were about dogs. The picture book I picked was Charlie The Ranch Dog by Ree Drummond and illustrated by Diane DeGroat.

Charlie and his pal Suzie are ranch dogs. Charlie likes to think he works hard on the ranch but the pictures tell a different story. But in the end, Charlie saves Mama’s garden from the marauding cows. This is a light hearted story that is true to  real dogs’ natures. The book is AR level 2.2. For more about this book check here. Oh, and it comes with a Lasagna recipe!

The next book, Travel-Size Pups Around the World by Ed Masessa , looks at small dogs and the countries they came from.

You visit countries on four continents and learn about the dogs from those places. Cute puppies and lots of dog facts. This is a Level 2 book. For more information check here.

 The Puppy Place books by Ellen Miles are about the Peterson family, especially Lizzie and Charles, who foster dogs from the animal shelter until they get their “forever” home. The book I chose was Muttley.

This book is fiction, but the author bases her dog portraits on dogs she knows, so at the end of the book you learn about the real dog, Barley. She also includes ‘Puppy Tips’ to help kids understand their dog friends. There are more than two dozen Puppy Place books including a gratuitous pug appearance, Pugsley.

You can find out more about this series here. The AR level for these books is 4.0-4.2.

2002 Newberry Award winner, Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, is about an eleven year old boy, Marty, and the dog he grows to love and tries to save from an abusive owner.

Marty faces and resolves a moral dilemma is his quest to  rescue Shiloh. The book  does have a happy ending.

The final book, The Trouble With Chickens by Doreen Cronin and illustrated by Kevin Cornell, is not about a real dog or a dog who could be real like the previous books. This one is about J.J. Tully a recently retired search and rescue dog who has retired to a farm. 

Doreen Cronin (Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type) uses her deadpan humor and a film noir style to tell the story of J.J. and his search for some missing chicks.  Their mother, Moosh, asks J.J. to help locate Poppy and Sweetie. A ransom note complicates things as does the presence of the mysterious Vince the Funnel who lives in the farm house. The AR level is 3.8. To see a video preview, click here.

Cronin’s second J.J. Tully Mystery, The Legend of Diamond Lil, is also at the book fair.