How to Look for a Lost Dog by Ann M. Martin

Book of the Week: 7 April 2019

When you are looking for your lost dog you need a plan. You should draw radiating circles around your home town on a map, each one further away from the centre of your town. Then you telephone all the animal shelters within 15 miles, 30 miles and 60 miles to see if they have your pet. Rose is methodical and fond of rules, although not as interested in them as she is in prime numbers and homonyms, so this is her plan when her father lets their dog Rain out during Hurricane Susan and she doesn’t come home.

Rose’s father is finding life difficult since her mother left them alone. He resents what he sees as the interference of his brother Weldon in Rose’s upbringing and finds Rose’s fascination with homonyms tests his patience to its limit. When a hurricane strands them in their house and Rose is distraught about their missing pet, the situation gets to breaking point.

The inclusion of a dog and a central character who is autistic make the comparison with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time an obvious one, but this is a book for younger readers and is in a lighter vein. You might enjoy it if you liked Wonder by R.J. Palacio or The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd.

Warwickshire Book Award 2019

The winner of the Warwickshire Book Award was announced on Thursday 4 April as S.T.A.G.S. by M.A. Bennett. The Year 7 judges and I were lucky enough to hear all six shortlisted authors talk about their work at The Bridge House Theatre, Warwick. Now the judges have read the shortlist, all the books are available to borrow from the Tim Pigott-Smith Library if you are looking for reading ideas for the holidays. If anything you want to read is already on loan, remember that reserving books is absolutely free.