Book Review: Doggo and Pupper Search for Cozy (children's book)

Doggo and Pupper Search for Cozy, by Katherine Applegate (Macmillan, 2023, ages 6-9, grades 2-3, 96pp HB, $9.99) Book three in the Doggo and Pupper series. Read a sample, listen to a sample.

How does she do it? The author, Katherine Applegate. How does she write three dog books, each with 7 chapters and each with 96 pages? And each about that adorable canine duo, Doggo and Pupper. And Cat.

My first-grader's fave was Pupper the puppy while I was drawn to Doggo the dog. So much so that I wanted to buy more copies of the books and hang some pages on our bulletin board. That is, until I realized how funny Doggo's cowlick was. 

Nonetheless, these books are long but can be read (OK, digested) in chewable amounts, like a chapter at a time. Each of the three books in the series has a plot that can be bitten off in small chunks at bedtime and the rest saved for the next night. And so on.

In The Search for Cozy, Cat gets a new bed from the humans (who we see only rarely and then, from waist down). Oh. no!

It looks like the old one. Same color. Same size. Same location. But it smells new and doesn't have Cat's lumps and bumps where Cat wants them. In other words, it is not her bed.

What To Do?

What do friends do in a case like this? Will Doggo and Pupper search for the old bed or can they make the new bed old?

Cats are cats and dogs are dogs and not always friends, even if they live in the same house. The young reader will have fun guessing what happens next to these 'friends.'

Author Katherine Applegate never writes down to her readership: she always challenges them and gives them a fun read - one that they can compare to their own lives. 

And I've said it before and I'll say it again. A good book needs a good story, well told. That is what Applegate does, but how she does it is a mystery. 

Book Review: Doggo and Pupper Save the World (children's book)

Doggo and Pupper Save the World, by Katherine Applegate (Macmillan, 2022, ages 6-9, grades 2-3, 96pp HB, $9.99) Book two in the Doggo and Pupper series. Listen to an audio sample here.

In this second Doggo and Pupper book, Pupper has grown up a little bit but is still a puppy. Pupper and Doggo discover a bird nest with two baby birds. They see one learning how to fly but think the other is afraid and will venture forth only when he is ready. Unfortunately, that baby bird is later discovered on the ground hidden in a bush. What should our heroes do? Help the baby bird - or will the mother find him and teach him to fly?

Young readers will learn what to do with wildlife they see in the wrong places.

This is the orange book while Doggo and Pupper is the blue book and the third in the series, Doggo and Pupper Search for Cozy, is also orange - at least the inner front and back pages are, a detail little kids will remember. 

We all simply love this series and hope it will continue.

As for saving the world. . . .

Next: the third and last book in the series so far, Doggo and Pupper Search for Cozy.

Book Review: Doggo and Pupper (children's book)

Doggo and Pupper, by Katherine Applegate (Macmillan, 2021, $9.99 HB, 96pp, ages 6-9, grades 1-preschool?) Read a sample here. 

Ah, another great great (dog) book by Katherine Applegate of Dogtown, Odder and Ivan* fame. Really fascinating stories for children that even their parents love. Well-written. And the illustrations! Adorable, whether drawn, like Dogtown and Doggo, or photographed (like Odder and Ivan).

Doggo is a dog, not old, but also not a puppy. He is set in his ways and comfortable in them, too. Until along comes a pupper, Pupper, to live with them. Pupper has energy and questions and more questions and he wants to play all day until he zonks out for a quick power nap. And, being a pupper, Pupper has to learn. He gets into a lot of trouble. And Cat just looks on.

A long book with 7 chapters and 96 pages, Doggo can be read all at once, or one chapter at a time.

Doggo has a lot of different jobs (treat smuggler and dream snuggler. . . . ) and your young reader will love all of them! Doggo used to be fun and his humans are getting worried about him so they bring home Pupper who causes havoc! So much that the family has to send Pupper to school. And school changes him.

To see how Doggo handles Pupper and how they finally become friends shows us how we too can accept a new family member.

You too will fall in love with both Doggo and Pupper, and may even name your next dog, Doggo. Or, Pupper!

Next: Book two of the Doggo and Pupper series.

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Dogtown: 

Odder: 

Ivan: 

Book Review: Let's Roll! Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage (OT)(Flight 93 on 9/11)

Let's Roll! Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage, by Lisa Beamer (Tyndale House, 2002, 352pp HC, $13.57) 

It's 911 all over again. 

Do you remember where you were when you heard the news? If you are old enough, you will never forget. If you are almost old enough, you will recall that things were different that day and that week. 

Todd Beamer was on United Flight 93 leaving the East Coast for the West Coast on a beautiful sunny September morning, but the plane never arrived. Instead, it was highjacked - and then Todd Beamer and Jeremy Glick and Tom Burnett and Mark Bingham forced the plane down in a crash in order to prevent the highjackers from flying the plane into a government building like three other planes (the Pentagon and the World Trade Center) and killing so many people. Beamer's words, "Let's Roll!" will live on in the memory of our country.

Let's Roll! is the story of Todd Beamer, starting almost as far back as his grandparents and focusing on the kind of person he was, along with his young family, remembered by his widow. He left behind two young toddler boys and a soon-to-be daughter (born four months later).

What kind of a person would do that? A loyal American, a father, a son, a husband, a Christian. This is the story of a hero and the family that made him that way. A riveting, well-written book that starts and ends with 911 but focuses on one young Christian man.

I like a lot of this book: the chapter titles, the short chapters - and I venture to say that many if not all readers will come away teary-eyed.

Book Review: Composer and Musician: Johannes Brahms (OT)

 Composer and Musician: Johannes Brahms, by Julie Sormark (Julie Sormark, 2023, 56pp, $9.99)

One of the famous three B's of music, along with Beethoven and Bach, Johannes Brahms' life spanned the 1800s. He was a perfectionist and loved children (always carried candy in his pockets to hand out) but like Franz Peter Schubert, Brahms never married. Nevertheless his most famous piece of music may be Brahms' Lullaby. He also composed A German Requiem which took several years, to honor his mother.

Once again, author Julie Sormark* tells a musician's story in poetry which is so difficult to accomplish well. In addition, the last few pages contain several different kinds** of quizzes, some of which are hard but doable. And kids will love learning about the kettle drum and how it nearly ruined one of Brahms' performances! Adults will be interested in the fact that he and the Schumanns (Robert and Clara) were so close that, after Robert's death, Brahms and Clara became so close that. . . . but they didn't.

*See the previous review here of Franz Peter Schubert

**Scrambled words, fill-in-the-blanks from a list of words given, multiple choice, plus a page of new vocabulary words, including fantasia

Book Review: Composer and Musician: Franz Peter Schubert (OT)

Composer and Musician: Franz Peter Schubert, by Julie Sormark (Julie Sormark, $9.99, 2023, 56pp)

Even in the 1700s and 1800s in Austria, coming from a middle- to lower class family, Franz Peter Schubert was uniquely talented, a musical genius who, unfortunately, was not well-known while he was alive. He also was never married though he fell in love twice, because he was so poor. He passed away young at age 31, looking up to or perhaps even idolizing Beethoven, but some people thought soon after his death that his musical composing abilities surpassed those of Beethoven. 

A Fun Book!

Author Julie Sormark writes this book in poem-form, a difficult task to accomplish well. Plus, she adds some quizzes: fill-in-the-blanks, multiple choice, and true-false along with a page of vocabulary words. And, perhaps more fun is how the illustrator, Timothy Stiles, drew so many pictures that the young reader can color, thus remembering what the story is all about and who Schubert was.

Other books in the series include Chopin, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and seven others musicians and composers. 

Ultimately, this engaging educational biographical poem serves as an accessible gateway that preserves Schubert's profound artistic legacy for a brand-new generation of young piano students.

Note: This was fun! I have recently tried to write at least 200 words per review but this time I got stuck at 178 so I asked Chat GPT who came up with the final  paragraph which I then edited. If I do so in the future, I will certainly note it as well.

Book Review: FLU: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It (OT)

FLU: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It, by Gina Kolata (Simon & Schuster, 2001, $14.00 PB, 352pp)

Oh, wow, what a great read! Non-fiction that reads like fiction: you just can't put it down and end up taking it with you wherever you go for a few days, but only a few days because that's all it takes to devour this book. And I wound up with two copies, lucky me. One to keep and one to give away.

Written just before COVID-19 (remember that?), FLU is a short 300-page history of  a disease called influenza or flu for short - and other pandemics (world-wide illnesses that are often fatal since humans do not have the capability to fight a new disease yet).  But it is also a thriller - a play by play account of scientists trying to beat each other to the prize* - finding the culprit from the 1918  pandemic, albeit frozen hopefully so you can compare the original to today's version, after evolving.

And vaccines. . . . "Better a vaccine without an epidemic than an epidemic without a vaccine." (p 139)

You will learn what H1N2** means so that you don't forget it plus you will learn about flu's eight genes and why it evolves in a major way every 10 years or so - think, Swine flu, bird flu, the Hong Kong flu. With 10 chapters, you will love how the author leaves you hanging at the end of every chapter, trying to figure out if you have time to read the next chapter because she has left you with only clues about what happens next. 

My only wish is that author Gina Kolata would follow this story up with another, bringing us up to date with the last 20 or 25 years of flu evolution. She is an imminently readable author.

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*this book is reminiscent of The Double Helix,

another very readable science book, this one about the 1950s race to discover the structure of DNA (basically between Watson-Crick and Linus Pauling).

** hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, the two proteins on the outside of the virus, one which helps the virus break into a host cell and one that helps it break back out once it has replicated. And the numerals stand for major evolutionary changes.