If We Could Talk to the Animals....: Daisy Dawson Is On Her Way! by Steve Voake

"Ex-excuse me," Daisy said uncertainly, still unable to believe her ears, "but did you say something to me?"

"Of course," replied the dog. "It would have been rude not to." He paused for a moment as if deep in thought, then said slowly, "Wait a minute... Do you actually understand what I'm saying to you?"

"Yes," replied Daisy. "I think I do."

Daisy Dawson is a girl with a Good Samaritan impulse, especially when it comes to animals, and that kindly urge has a way of making her late for school most days. But even though on Monday she promises her mom not to dawdle, when she stops to free a butterfly caught in a spider's web, the butterfly's touch imparts something special. Daisy finds that she now can actually talk with the animals.

First she chats with hound dog Boom, for whom she has been making an extra ham sandwich every morning, and then at school discovers that she can understand two AWOL classroom gerbils helping themselves to someone's lunch in the coat room. Later Daisy strikes up a conversation with a lost ant in the principal's office, learns that Boom has gotten himself caught by the dog catcher sent by a supercilious cat named Trixie, and persuades a squirrel called Cyril and a horse called Meadowsweet to become co-conspirators with her in freeing Boom from Krackdown Kennels, the hoosegow for hobo hounds in her town.

The Krackdown Kennels caper is complicated, with Cyril entrusted with stealing the keys to Boom's cage from the crusty old kennel keeper while she sleeps. Although Cyril runs into some problems with that plan, the much maligned Trixie comes through with an alternative scheme which brings old Boom back home to the barn, a free canine again.

Fetchingly and fully illustrated with Jessica Meserve's rough-line sketches, Steve Voake's latest, Daisy Dawson Is on Her Way! (Daisy Dawson), introduces another adventure for his intrepid animal-loving heroine in this endearing beginning chapter Daisy Dawson series.