It's
Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
at
at
and #IMWAYR day
at
Hoyle, McCall. Forever Ripley September 2, 2025 by Shadow Mountain Publishing
E ARC Provided by Edelweiss Plus
Ripley was a working dog, patrolling the fields and swamps with her handler, Max. When Max passes away, Ripley is supposed to take care of his wife and daughter, Charlie. She's done that for quite a while, but is getting up in years for a German Shepherd. After simple things like jumping out of bed start to cause Ripley pain, Mom asks Mr. Chen, a friend and retired animal specialist, to help with some medication to make Ripley more comfortable. When even this doesn't help, a visit to the vet confirms that Ripley has an osteosarcoma and will most likely succumb to it in a couple of months. Charlie comes up with a bucket list of things to do to improve Ripley's quality of life, like eating fried chicken, playing games of tug toy, going to Nag's Head for ice cream, and sitting on the beach to watch the sunset. Mr. Chen, who lost his wife of over 40 years, encourages Ripley to talk about her losses, and says that doing so has helped him. A neighbor boy, Nathan, is dealing with the loss of his mother, but his idea of coping has led him to be rather negative. Mom is also a wildlife conservationist, and has been concerned about people who are poaching turtles and taking lumber out of the forest without permission. When Ripley takes a shortcut through the woods, she runs into the criminals, and they take Ripley, thinking she is a scent dog who would be able to find them. Charlie manages to save Ripley, but the experience has been hard on her body; she's even "met" Max briefly before returning to life. Charlie's training and observational skills help to catch the criminals, but Ripley's days are numbered. Having made an appointment at the vet when Ripley's health declines, the family throws a spectacular party involving cake and all of the people who love Ripley, Charlie, and Mom. Ripley curls up with her girls and peacefully passes away. While Charlie and Mom are sad, they have learned a lot from Ripley and will keep good memories of her, as well as the father, alive.
Strengths: Hoyle's Stella, Just Gus, and Millie have been very popular choices with my students, and they are an excellent example of how to successfully tell a story from a dog's point of view while also making them just a tad omniscient. Some books from animals' points of view can be a bit cloying or confusing, but this is not the case here. The way emotions are expressed and explored follows the modern best practices for emotional regulartion, and it was interesting to see the difference in how Charlie and Nathan deal with their experiences. I was intrigued by the parents' jobs with wildlife, and Ripley's past as a working dog, and would have loved to know even more. The slow progression of Ripley's decline is realistically and delicately handled, and her ending is idyllically sad and sweet.
Weaknesses: While Hoyle has an excellent note at the beginning of the book about why she feels that discussing grief is necessary and important, the combination of the father's passing and the on page death of Ripley might be too much for sensitive readers. While the mother should have talked to her daughter, the first thing she should have done was to get her daughter into therapy after her father's death.
What I really think: This strikes me as a new millenium version of Where the Red Fern Grows or Charlotte's Web, and will be beloved by people who find books dealing with grief to be comforting and helpful.
What I really think: This strikes me as a new millenium version of Where the Red Fern Grows or Charlotte's Web, and will be beloved by people who find books dealing with grief to be comforting and helpful.
Copy provided by the publisher
Hockey is a fairly new game in my town of Columbus, Ohio; the Blue Jackets didn't start here until 2000, but now has a very loyal following. I've noticed that while hockey isn't necessarily a popular sport, it has very avid fans. There are few middle grade novels about it, and my readers who play hockey are always looking for something beyond Sigmund Brouwer titles to read.
Since I know nothing about hockey (other than the singular fact that the sport didn't require helmets in the US until 1979, and that a grandfather clause allowed Cragi McTavish to play until the late 90s without head protection!), I learned things on every page. Look at all the different leagues, with so many teams! Hockey was invented around 1875! The National Hockey Legaue started in 1917!
The format of this book, and the inclusion of math, really sets this apart. There are "Pencil Power" insets that require some math calculations, although the answer is conveniently given upside down. The other thing that I really enjoyed was the inclusion of women's hockey; there's even a photo very early in the book of a player with two long braids! So many times, sports books overlook the female aspects of the sport, so it was reassuring to see the womens' statistics and history right alongside the mens'.
Like It's a Numbers Game! Football, this has plenty of photographs, diagrams, charts, and graphs throughout the book, nd tons of statistics about various aspects. This is a great way to entice young readers to enjoy math, even if they don't really know that they are doing work!
Fans of hockey who enjoyed Sports Illustrated Kids Hockey Then to Wow and fictional titles like Kadohata's Checked and Kim's On Thin Ice will want to take a look at this informative and amusing nonfiction title about this "cool" sport.
Somehow it feels like books about animals dying are even more heartbreaking than those about people dying. No logic there, but it's a pretty risky thing to have the dog die on the page!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if I had read the numbers book when I was a kid if I would have grown up to be an adult who likes football and Math! Ripley's story sounds good, but sad. Carol Baldwin
ReplyDeleteForever Ripley sounds terrific. Thanks for the heads up.
ReplyDelete