Mountain Dog

Mountain Dog

Author: Margarita Engle

Illustrator: Olga and Aleksey Ivanov

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Award: Bluebonnet Award

Grade Level: 3^rd to 5^th grade

This book is a novel in verse so it is easy for the student to finish the story within a day or two. The story begins with Tony shuddering at the thoughts of it bulls that his mother owned for dog fights. The moment the readers read the first verse, you cannot help but feel for Tony who is forced to watch the poor dogs fighting as a game. His mother often goes to prison so Tony’s social worker finds a relative to foster Tony till his mother is out of prison. Tony is first reluctant to

the idea of staying with the relative because he has been unwanted by his own mother that he feels that he is a burden for his uncle to look after. When his uncle, Tio, meets Tony. Tio introduces Gabe, a chocolate Labrador, who helps him rescue people lost in the mountains. Tony does not understand Gabe’s behavior, so jolly and friendly since he thinks that all dogs are meant for fighting. Gabe slowly learns to get Tony’s trust by playing with him and always staying by his side whenever Tony comes home after his visit to the prison. Tony also merges himself to his uncle's work of rescuing people while trying to understand and at the same time forget his mother. This story is really about the boy learning to trust and learning to be loved by someone as well as to forgive by the help from his uncle but mostly…Gabe!

The chapters are divided between Tony and Gabe. Tony’s chapters are longer and go into details about his emotions and struggle to come to terms with his mother. Gabe chapters are a page long and always follow Tony’s. His chapters always consist of smelling Tony’s fear and trying to calm and make him happy. Some of the chapters consist of concrete like verse which is the other great feature about this book. The verse for example,

"Instead, I panic and run

  until I'm sliding down

  a long, steep 

s

          l

                 o

                        p

                              e

scrambling

to keep from falling

over a cliff."      

Some the chapters also consist of illustration which is beautifully drawn. It also serves as a good break for the readers who wants to finish the book in one go!

Thoughts:

When I picked up this book from the library, I thought it was a poetry book that received Bluebonnet award. But when I got home, I realized that it was a novel in verse. I really am ashamed of myself because I did not even know that novel in verse existed. I love this book. Yes, because it is about a relationship between a boy and a dog but also it features a unique style of telling a 39 chapters story (i.e verse novel). This will be a terrific book to introduce to the student as a novel in verse. I know the students will love it because it is fairly easy to read (I finished the book in 2 hours) and if the students are like me then they probably have never heard that novel can be written in a poetry way. An excellent book!