Good Dogs, Great Listeners

REVIEW: GOOD DOGS, GREAT LISTENERS: THE STORY OF CHARLOTTE, LILY, AND THE LISTENERS by Renata Bowers

Oh, I love this delectable children's book!! What a great lesson it contains, and such vividly depicted imagination! Young Charlotte dreams of being a vet--but as yet she doesn't comprehend the long years of diligent study. She has a wonderfully exercised imagination ("the Litter" consists of her several beloved stuffed pets), but she doesn't love to read. In fact, Charlotte doesn't like reading at all. Until one day....

This is a delightful children's book and will be well loved and read by dog lovers of all ages. This book is the story of Charlotte, an energetic young girl, who would rather create her fantasies and turn them into reality than sit and read her books. Charlotte wants to be a vet though; and sitting, reading and studying are going to be valuable skills. If only she could focus long enough to master them. When her beloved Lily is injured and needs to rest, perhaps it's finally time to tone down the adventures and travel to far off places in her mind instead.

Charlotte memorializes a young girl's tragic life cut short in the Newtown/Sandy Hook shootings. Charlotte's Litter was founded in honor of the therapy dog care received after that terrible day.

This had a good idea - a little girl read books to her dogs both alive and stuffed - but the premise didn't quite make sense, and I took issue with a few things in this story. Charlotte procrastinates reading by using her imagination when playing with her dogs - which her parents discourage. (First issue right there! Never discourage good, active use of imagination! Plus, she kept playing the same topics the books were about so why not use her play to encourage the reading?? More to the point, how did she know how to play ocean voyage, or ball, or karate without having read the books?). (Also, within these examples, there was one time she went into her parents' bedroom and got into her mother's make-up...and then got discovered by a "trail of make up" in the hallway - which made no sense since Charlotte had been in the room the whole time, so how did a trail of make-up get out in the hall? But I digress). The her dog, Lily, gets injured during a tae kwon do demonstration, so Lily is effectively put on bedrest. Whence Charlotte decides to read aloud to Lily while she gets better rather than play rough with her. It got to the great idea - reading to dogs - at the end, but in such an odd manner. This story seemed to put a definite divide between imaginative play and reading that bothered me - imagination goes hand in hand with both playing and reading!!

I really can't turn down a book that encourages the kids to read. The illustrations are charming. The problem is real and I love the way it gets solved. Most of my kids love books, and the majority do like to read already, so this will definitely be checked out a lot.