Book-A-Day Almanac

Today, of course, we celebrate Valentine’s Day. Today also marks the beginning of the Westminster Dog Show, a time when the top dogs arrive in New York to compete for the crown. My first Valentines on this day always go to my dogs. Some people say that the dog/human connection is one of unconditional love. I’m not so sure of that—my dogs at times indicate they have some reservations about my behavior. Recently, I kept saying to my puppy Lancelot, “I love you, but I do wish you would learn to go ‘outside’ when necessary.” Certainly, the bond between a dog who participates in dog shows and his or her handler is incredibly complex.

This month that relationship gets explored in a new book, A Dog’s Way Home by Bobbie Pyron. In the first chapter, we watch Abby, age eleven, and Tam, a Shetland sheepdog, win an agility contest. Abby does not even need to use hand signals; they work together so well as a team. But on the way home to their small town, Harmony, North Carolina, a horrible car accident on the Blue Ridge Parkway sends Abby to the hospital and Tam sailing out of the truck in his crate.

Now, if you are like me, you will skip ahead and read the last chapter. Like Gordon Korman has said, I also believe in No More Dead Dogs. I do not need to read a book to cry over the death of dog. So here’s the last line of A Dog’s Way Home, “Finally, everything was as it should be.” And that means, of course, Abby and Tam reunited.

Pryon alternates this heart-touching book, one that will remind readers of Lassie Come-Home or The Incredible Journey, between the narrative voices of Abby and Tam. Tam’s voice seems particularly brilliant; he emerges as a real dog, with one concern—to find the girl he loves. But to do that he will almost drown, nearly starve, bond with a coyote, get rescued by a dog shelter, and dodge bullets. His odyssey, as he travels the Parkway four hundred miles to come home to Abby, has all the elements of an epic quest.

Abby tries to soldier on. Her father works as a traveling musician and the family lacks the funds necessary for an all-out search for Tam. But Abby stays true to her belief that Tam lives and that he will find her. At one point, the family moves to Nashville. Abby adjusts, slowly, to the new environment. During the same time in the story, Tam has found someone to care for him and nurse him back to health. Yet neither stops thinking about the other.

A good dog story well-told is much more difficult to write than most people think. Bringing knowledge gained by being a librarian and an animal rescue worker, Bobbie Pryon has pulled together the necessary elements and makes the book original with her portrait of Abby and Tam. The book works as a read alone or read aloud for third through sixth grades. Short chapters, alternating between Abby and Tam, provide just the right amount of material for sharing. Even without a dead dog, this is definitely a three handkerchief ending.

So after you finish watching the Westminster Dog Show, pick up A Dog’s Way Home. And happy Valentine’s Day to you and your canine friends.

Here’s a passage from A Dog’s Way Home: