{My thoughts} – Cecillia is a smart girl that has a passion and a love for animals. She spends her spare time helping at the local animal rescue called Orphan Paws. While she is there one afternoon a cute little pug comes in and he’s in horrible shape. She is the one that ends up cleaning him up and gaining his trust. She bonds with him and really wants to keep him, but has to figure out how to ask her dad if she can have a dog or not.

Lori the person that runs the shelter, tries to give her the time she needs to talk to her dad. However, it doesn’t seem to work out in Cecillia’s favor because a boy from her class ends up coming to the shelter and his family adopts the pug. She feels betrayed and sad and hurt and wants to just spend as much time with the pug as she can before he goes off to live with his new owners. It turns out though that she becomes friends with the boy {Eric’s} twin sister and gets to spend a lot of time around the pug. She settles for that option but then Eric asks her to help him train the pug so that it can take part in dog shows. She agrees, because it means she can spend even more time with the pug.

I have to admit, this wasn’t quite what I was expecting when I’d started to read this book. I have a habit of not reading a books synopsis before I start the book. I do that so then I don’t judge a book without giving it a good go. I try to read the first few chapters and judge from there. This book turned out to be more then I had expected. It was incredible. I love that it was about animal rescue. I love that Cecillia was so passionate about helping animals that she continued to volunteer at the shelter even after she’d lost the pug to her classmates. I love that meeting that sweet little pug was what helped her to come out of her shell! This book was just so incredible. It made me laugh, it made me tear up and it made me think about how even young children have a hard time dealing with the toughness of some of the situations that they are forced to deal with on a regular basis.

I think that any child that reads this book will be able to learn something from it’s pages. There is so much within the pages, that there is so much to take away. So, so much, that I highly recommend this book for children, middle grade and even junior high! I look forward to reading more books by this author in the future! ( )

Independent Reading Level Ages 9-12
Awards: Collecting Nebula Award Winners of the 1970s