Book Review: A Girl's Best Friend (puppy, American Girl)

A Girl’s Best Friend, by Catherine Stine (American Girl Publishing, 2010, 120 pages, $8.95, ages 8 and up, grades 3-4)

What did young girls (ages 8 and above) do before the exclusive American Girls products came on the scene? Truly an institution now, AG started as books about girls in history* like Kit Kittredge during the 30s

then morphed into contemporary book characters with themes like loyalty and doing what’s right, along with baby dolls, look-alike dolls, their pets, mysteries, doll clothes and equipment galore (young girls can even dress like their dolls in matching outfits).

A Girl’s Best Friend gives us a story (or more – with reader-selected options) about a puppy and places the reader into the heroine’s role to learn about loyalty and responsibility and trust and secrets and the limits of love along with eight of her best friends. The book stars You, the reader.

The young girls live on a university campus (Innerstar University), in single rooms, and eat in a cafeteria. Some also work shifts at Pet-Palooza (seemingly a puppy boarding kennel or day care) and there is a lot of hugging going on - girls hug dogs, and girls hug girls.

Pepper, a pup at P-P runs away from his family. You find him and want to protect him so you try to keep him in your dorm room but find it harder to care for a pup than you once thought. Will you return him? How will you explain what you tried to do as unsuccessfully as the pup’s family? What will the consequences be? Will your friends stick by you?

Surprising Interactive Options from American Girl

Remember books that let the reader choose what page to read next, e.g., “Go to page 34 if you think you will do thus and such,” ‘Go to page 61 if you think you will do something else.” A Girl’s Best Friend is interactive with has 20 endings and can be read time and again with different details, all related, and all coming to a good conclusions.

Hidden Education

The young reader will also learn a little about dog shelters and fund-raisers, and a little about dog training (the old fashioned way, however, so you can start conversations about why we don’t use traditional methods and terms like ‘commands’ and ‘obedience’ as much as in the past).

*Read our review of Kit Kittredge’s (The Great Depression) movie here.