Under the Christmas Tree: Books about Dogs for Middle Readers

If you can't surprise a child on Christmas with a cute dog decked out in a big red ribbon, the next best thing is a book about man's best friend. Here are a few of the many good books about dogs out there that will be faithful friends long after the tree comes down.

Peg Kehret's collection, Shelter Dogs: Amazing Stories of Adopted Strays, recounts the true stories of eight dogs who went from homeless to honored pets. One became famous as a television actor; one pioneered as a service dog who could predict and protect her owner from epileptic attacks, one became a hero who rescued his family from a fire, and all went on to reward their new owners many times over for the gift of a home and a new life.

Not all homeless dogs are fortunate enough to be rescued and adopted by loving people. Ann M. Martin's story, A Dog's Life: Autobiography of a Stray tells the story of a female dog, herself the pup of a stray mother, who spends most of her life surviving on the fringes of the human world. With but one interlude as a temporary "summer dog" with a vacationing family, she wanders from place to place until at last, old and barely able to stay alive on her own, she is taken in by a kindly older woman who also needs a friend.

Sometimes the dog you love belongs to someone else, someone who shouldn't own an animal at all. That is Marty's situation in Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Newbery Award book and sequels, the Shiloh Trilogy. Marty works to buy the abused young dog he names Shiloh from her cruel owner, but even when he saves up enough money, he finds that his troubles have only begun in protecting the dog he loves.

Noted author Gary Paulsen's My Life in Dog Years includes his honest and loving portraits of the dogs of his life--from the heroic moments when his sled dog Cookie saved him from a fall through the ice, his first dog Snowball saved him from a poisonous snakebite, and the street-smart stray Dirk saved the on-his-own teen from street gangs, to the hilarious tales of Fred, a one-dog tornado of material destruction, and Caesar, the huge Great Dane reduced to hiding in closets in fear of trick-or-treaters. Paulsen is one who sees into the souls of his dogs and writes emotionally but truthfully of their contributions to his life. Each chapter stands on its own, and the easy personal tone makes this an exciting and absorbing book for middle readers.

Some of the best dog stories are golden oldies, and a real bargain is Three Dog Tales: Old Yeller, Sounder, Savage Sam. This collection includes two of Fred Gipson's Texas-sized tales, Old Yeller, the dog who fought for and died for his young boy, and his offspring Savage Sam, who took his place, and Sounder, William Armstrong's Newbery Award book about a tough old survivor of a hound dog who becomes the symbol of hope for his sharecropper family. All three are twentieth century children's classics which will endure.

Sharon Creech's Love That Dog, composed in a sort of blank verse both easy to read and deeply moving, is written as a classroom journal in which the young writer reveals his own lonely and troubled life and his short-lived joy with the stray dog he claims and comes to love.

In contrast, Avi's The Good Dog tells the story of a much-loved and, some would say, pampered pet. McKinley, the top dog in his mountain town, helps a wolf named Lupin and becomes torn between his domesticated duty to his kind family and the "call of the wild" from the wolf pack his primal heart longs to join.

For young dog owners, here's an everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-dogs book. Whether the reader is a current dog owner, planning to become a dog owner, or just a hopeful dog lover, The Complete Dog Book for Kids, published by the American Kennel Club, provides beautiful color photos of many popular breeds and information on choosing and buying the right dog, as well as advice on feeding, training, and caring for the health and nutrition of that dog when you bring him home.