Dogs Who Work: The Canines We Cannot Live Without — Review

Thought for the Day:

“I don’t want to write for adults. I want to write for readers who can perform miracles. Only children perform miracles when they read.”
~ Astrid Lindgren ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Nathan Bransford has some excellent suggestions HERE in his post How to Self-Edit Your Novel.

Our characters have to be authentic for our readers to engage. HERE is a Writer’s Digest article by S. K. Ali with 3 (In-Depth) Tips for Writing Fresh and Authentic Characters.

There are so many punctuation rules, few can keep them all in their heads. I am pretty picky about punctuation, but I know I miss things sometimes, so when I run across a good post on punctuation, I pay attention. HERE Tiffany Yates Martin has a guest post on Writer UnBoxed on Assuaging the Pain of Punctuation. It’s a good one.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers and grandmothers reading here today. Instead of writing much today, I will instead give you something fun to enjoy.

LEXOPHILIA!
  Although not in the dictionary, it is reported that “Lexophile” describes a person who loves sentences such as, “You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish,” and, “To write with a broken pencil is pointless.”
  An annual competition is held by the ‘New York Times’ to see who can create the best original lexophile. This year’s submissions:

I changed my iPod’s name to Titanic.  It’s syncing now.
England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.
Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.
This girl today said she recognized me from the Vegetarians Club, but I’d swear I’ve never met herbivore.
I know a guy who’s addicted to drinking brake fluid, but he says he can stop any time.
A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.
When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A.
I got some batteries that were given out free of charge.
A dentist and a manicurist married.  They fought tooth and nail.
A will is a dead giveaway.
With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress. 
Police were summoned to a daycare where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.
A bicycle can’t stand alone; it’s just two tired.
The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine last week is now fully recovered.
He had a photographic memory, but it was never fully developed.
When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she’d dye.
Acupuncture is a jab well done.  That’s the point of it.
I didn’t like my beard at first.  Then it grew on me.
Did you hear about the crossed-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn’t control her pupils?  
When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.
When chemists die, they barium.
I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.

Last week I offered a gently-read ARC of HOME AWAY FROM HOME by Cynthia Lord to one of you. She is such a great writer and this is such a terrific book. Congratulations to Donna Gwinnell Lambo-Weidner! She is our winner this week. If you don’t know Donna, she is a northern-California children’s writer, and you can learn more about her at her site HERE. Donna, I will get your book out to you soon.

I am always really happy when I find a good non-fiction middle-grade book, especially when it’s about dogs. I saw DOGS WHO WORK: THE CANINES WE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT on the review list for the Portland Book Review and requested it right away. It did not disappoint. Kids just love books about dogs, and this would be especially good for reluctant readers. Here is the review I wrote for PBR.

Dogs have long been thought of as man’s best friends, but they are more than that. They are also workers with varied and important jobs. Youngsters have probably seen service dogs helping people who are blind or in other ways disabled, and others that herd sheep, pull sleds, work with police, and help with mountain rescues, but there are many other jobs kids probably don’t know about. Dogs are trained to hunt for precious truffles, they can be trained to detect cancer, they can help find the cause of a fire, find leaks, or even be therapy dogs for people with psychological issues.

One section covers jobs dogs did in times past: fighting in wars, carrying messages for soldiers, pulling carts, and more. Another section showcases mythological dogs while another covers famous dogs. Each spread in the book has an illustration of a dog at work along with a few paragraphs explaining the job and mission along with the qualities necessary for a dog to be successful in the job and breeds commonly found doing the job. The writing is conversational and age-appropriate for middle-grade students. The illustrations are nice, but not terribly detailed. This will fascinate young readers.

Please don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.