If you have a new puppy or are thinking about getting one, this is a book you might want to read. "Civilizing Your Puppy" by Barbara J. Wrede is not really a kid's book. It is written for grown-ups, but the pictures and information in it should be of great interest to kids. This little paperback is just what you need if you have a new puppy or are thinking about getting one in your family.

Just like little kids, cute little puppies have to be taught manners and when to be on their best behavior. They have to learn when to obey the person responsible for them or they can be hurt by cars in traffic or by bigger dogs who might attack them. Puppies have to be taught what they can use as toys to chew on and what they must leave alone. They have to learn not to even play at biting people and not to jump up on people. They have to be taught how to act in a car and how not to run out of the yard just because the gate is open. Dogs with good behavior are much more fun to be around and make much better pets than ones that just run around and do wild things.

The author of this book raised Great Dane puppies for years and entered them in dog shows. You all know how big a Great Dane is. It is one of the biggest dogs there is! So, if she could train Great Danes to be gentle and mannerly housedogs, her advice on training puppies is worth listening to. She has trained all kinds of dogs, though, big and little. One of her jobs through the years was to train people's misbehaving dogs so they could be kept as pets and not have to be taken to the dog pound to be destroyed. She makes the case very well that if people love their dogs, the dogs must be taught manners from their puppyhood.

Owning a dog is a lot of responsibility. We must take the trouble to teach a young puppy what is needs to know to be a good family member. If we do that, the dog will have a better life and so will we. "Civilizing Your Puppy" is meant to help us turn that new puppy into a member of the family.

 

A story about an "outcast"
from a family of "outcasts"

The character telling the story in "Reaching Dustin" is Carly Cameron, a sixth-grade girl who lives in a small farm community in rural Missouri. Just out of town and down by the river lives a family whose last name is "Groat." The Groats are kind of mysterious because they don't mix very much with the other people in town. The place where they live is like a junkyard and is kept pretty much hidden from anyone who ventures around their territory. The Groat men have a lot of tattoos on their bodies and like to shoot guns off every so often. The rumor is that they grow illegal marijuana to sell to the drug dealers down from the city.

The youngest Groat is Dustin, who just happens to be in Carly's sixth grade class. Dustin is a weird kid and is considered "gross" by most of the sixth grade class. Carly likes to write and wants to be an author of books when she grows up. First, though, she would like to be editor of the sixth grade newspaper. She has a class assignment to write an article about someone in her class. To get the editor's job, Carly knows her article needs to be more interesting than any of the other students' stories. The name of the person she drew to write about was Dustin Groat!

Carly starts out thinking that Dustin is pretty much "gross," just like the rest of the class does. However, as she gets to know more about him, she realizes how difficult his life has become not only as the class "outcast," but also as a member of the family that are the town's outcasts. She finds out how scared he is, how sensitive he is, and how talented he is as a musician. Before the book ends, the plot gets pretty complicated, as we find out more and more about the Groats and why they have the reputation that they do.

The author, Vicki Grove, is a prize-winning author of children's books. She also is a Missouri resident.

 

A history mystery about a girl
who is both French and Indian

Suzette is a 12-year-old who is a member of the Ojibwe tribe of Northern Wisconsin. Her father is a French fur trader who has chosen to marry an Indian woman and live with his wife's family and tribe. The time is the 1730's when trapping and trading furs with French voyageurs from Canada was the way the Ojibwe Indians supported themselves.

Suzette stands out among the other Indian children because she not only speaks the Ojibwe language but has also been taught to speak, read, and write French. There is a contest among the trappers to see who will bring in the most furs. All the trappers bring their furs to Fort La Pointe to trade during the big once-a-year celebration. Suzette's father needs to win the competition or he will have to spend the next year away from his family.

Some furs are stolen and Suzette's father is blamed and about to be tried for the theft. Suzette needs to find out who the real thief is in order to save her father from a terrible punishment. Her willingness to take risks and her ability to speak and read French play a big part in the way she goes about solving the mystery and clearing her father's name. A reader of the book will be really surprised at who the bad guy turns out to be, just as Suzette was.

The paperback "Trouble at Fort La Pointe" was written by Kathleen Ernst who lives in Wisconsin. She has written other historical books for young readers as well as one for adults, all about the American Civil War.

 

An adventure story for boys that
combines a mystery with history

Nathan MacAllister is a fourteen-year-old whose father is a lighthouse keeper. The location is on Cape Flattery at the tip of Washington State, a stormy and treacherous sea route for sailing ships. The time was 1874, when lighthouses were essential for keeping shipping lanes open. Nathan is big for his age and has learned to accept a heavy load of responsibility as he works with his father in the lighthouse. Because he is good with a canoe, he is accepted into the hunts conducted by the Makah Indians, a tribe that engages in fishing for salmon and seal hunting off the coast of Washington.

During a storm, a sailing ship breaks up near the lighthouse, and there are reported to be no survivors. But Nathan picks up clues suggesting that, in fact, there was at least one survivor. Since a killing had occurred on the sailing ship before the wreck, that survivor is very likely a murderer. Nathan gets involved in some exploring and some canoeing expeditions with the friendly Indians that put his life in serious danger. He tries to keep his father and mother unaware of the hazards he encounters when they let him take off on his own.

The key to the mystery he is trying to solve is found in a canoe hidden high in a tree, that is the burial site for a long-dead Indian leader. Nathan has to respect the traditions and spiritual beliefs of the Makah tribe, while, at the same time, he searches for the evidence to stop a killer. The killer knows that Nathan is on to him, so Nathan's life is in danger from him, as well.

"Ghost Canoe" was written by Will Hobbs, a popular writer of adventure stories for teen-age boys. We are told that the lighthouse that was the center of this story still stands today.