Dear Hound

by Jill Murphy, Jill Murphy (Illustrator)

Overview

A charming and exciting journey homeward from the bestselling author of the Worst Witch series

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802723635
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	09/27/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
Lexile:	840L (what's this?)
File size:	7 MB
Age Range:	7 Years

About the Author

JILL MURPHY is the author of the Worst Witch series, which has sold over four million copies worldwide, as well as several award-winning picture books for younger children. She lives in England.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 2–4—Alfie, a huge deerhound puppy with expressive ears, gets lost in the heath after he escapes from his dog-sitter. As Charlie and his mother wander around town looking for their pet and hanging up posters, Alfie searches for them. For months, owners and dog just miss each other, outside of the local restaurant (with an accessible trash bin) and in the moors. The animal's fur becomes more and more unkempt, and his face is matted and smeared with grease and dirt from his frequent Dumpster meals, making him look less and less like the picture on the posters. By the book's end, Alfie has run into a couple of improbable comrades, two unlikely villains, and finally, his family. This chapter book will appeal to fans of animal stories who have moved beyond Arnold Lobel's "Frog and Toad" titles (HarperCollins) but aren't quite ready for the length and complexity of E. B. White's Stuart Little. Murphy's expressive black-and-white line spot drawings (sometimes three to a spread) and deerhound notes ("GARDENING: They are great hole-diggers. Once they've started a hole, they don't stop till Australia") heighten the characterizations and add detail to the settings.—Lindsay Persohn, Crystal Lake Elementary, Lakeland, FL

School Library Journal

Alfie, an adolescent deerhound who's been left with a dog-sitter, is spooked by an encounter with an electric fence. He runs off into heavily forested Hawkland Heath, where the distraught animal is befriended by a pair of kindly foxes. Although miserable, he learns to cope with life in the forest. Things are much worse for his master, Charlie, who desperately misses his exuberant pet. Although he and his mother continue to search for Alfie for months, having several near misses, the dog is finally found by a dognapper bent on training him to illegally hunt at night with a bright light—"lamping," in British parlance. Having once taken a vow (with his family cat) to never chase animals, he isn't about to break it with a thug. In the end, the foxes find a way to help deserving Alfie. Murphy deftly conveys the dog's angst with occasional all-caps dialogue. Her charming black-and-white line illustrations appear on every spread, extending the simple text and making this an excellent choice for readers recently transitioned to chapter books. (Animal fantasy. 7-11)

Kirkus Reviews