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|---|---|---|
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | J Fic Breathed, B. 2009 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
The Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of Bloom County and Opus delivers a humorous and heartwarming illustrated novel for kids and dog-lovers of any age!
"Breathed, through words and lush illustrations, tells a story that will charm many readers."-- The New York Times
Sam the Lion is actually a priceless dachshund, bred to be a show dog. More important, he is Heidy's best friend and she needs one like never before. Living with her reclusive uncle is hard, but Sam has a way of making her feel soft and whole. Until the day Sam is framed by the jealous poodle Cassius, and is cast out by Heidy's uncle, alone on the wild streets, where he is roughed up by a world he was not bred for. Sporting a soup ladle for a leg, Sam befriends other abandoned dogs and journeys all the way to the Westminster Dog Show, where his plan for revenge on Cassius takes an unexpected turn when he and Heidy spot each other after years of being apart.
Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author Berkeley Breathed's first illustrated novel is a heartwarming and humorous ode to the unconditional and lasting love we and our pets share.
Author Notes
Berkeley Breathed is an American cartoonist, children's book author/illustrator, director, and screenwriter, best known for Bloom County, a 1980s cartoon-comic strip. Bloom County earned Berkeley the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1987. He replaced the Bloom County strip with the surreal Sunday-only cartoon, Outland in 1989, which featured some of the Bloom County characters. Eight years later, Berkeley began producing the comic strip, Opus, a Sunday-only strip featuring Opus the Penguin.
In addition to his cartoon work, he has also produced seven children's books, two of which, A Wish for Wings That Work and Edwurd Fudwupper Fibbed Big, were made into animated films. Berkeley's writing has also been featured in numerous publications, including Life, Boating, and Travel and Leisure.
Berkeley lives with his family in Southern California.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-Berkeley Breathed's chapter book (Philomel, 2009) takes a critical look at the competitive world of pure-bred dog shows from the canine's point of view. Sam is a prize-winning dachshund whose owner is determined to take him to the top-best in show at Westminster. But Sam's life takes a turn for the worse when he is framed by Cassius, a vicious full-size poodle who lives in his house. Sam soon becomes homeless, winds up in a last ditch dog pound, loses a leg, and is involved in a vicious dog fight. Along the way, Sam's only focus is seeking revenge against Cassius. With the help of the other strays from the pound, this motley pack stage a raid on the Westminster dog show with the aim of ruining Cassius. Johnny Heller's raspy tone is the perfect match for this cruel, yet darkly comic tale. His wide variety of voices for the many characters make the complex story easier to follow. A solid choice for mutt and stray lovers, but Westminster fans may take offense.-Karen T. Bilton, Mary Jacobs Library, Rocky Hill, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Bloom County cartoonist Breathed (Pete & Pickles) makes the move from picture books to middle-grade fiction and, from the harrowing opening scene at a dog fight, readers will be rapt. After spending eight years isolated at a boarding school in Minnesota, 14-year-old orphan Heidy McCloud is invited to live with her dejected uncle Hamish, greedy Mrs. Beaglehole and their evil poodle, Cassius, on the vacant McCloud Heavenly Acres dog ranch in Piddleton, Vt., "Home of the World's Most Beautiful Dogs." En route, Heidy meets Sam, a Du glitz dachshund worth $180,000, and a reciprocal, platonic love is born. However, Cassius resents the attention Sam receives and sets a trap resulting in the dachshund's imprisonment in a pound with "the seven most ridiculous dogs [Sam] had ever seen," as well as Sam's suffering an awful injury. But the dog's determination to reunite with Heidy doesn't wane. Dramatically lit and featuring comically exaggerated characters (human and canine alike), Berkeley's b&w artwork augments the story's drama and humor. A moving tale about the beauty of imperfections and the capacity for love. Ages 8-12. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Breathed's fans won't be surprised by the dark tone of this outlandish tale, but readers expecting a heartwarming pet story may be taken aback by the difficulties that face Sam, the canine hero. Luckily, smooth writing and humorous exaggeration make it relatively easy to get through the violence of a dog-fighting ring, the perfidy of an envious poodle and three long (mercifully undescribed) years in a research lab. Characterization of the humans is sketchy at best, but the various canine and feline players are an endearing mix of odd attributes and engaging personalities (except for the murderous poodle). Sam's clever plot to infiltrate the Westminster dog show combines the suspense of an over-the-top caper film with the slapstick of the Marx Brothers (Mrs. Nutbush bears a striking resemblance to Margaret Dumont). Clearly growing out of, but not a simple expansion of, the 2003 picture book of the same name, these pups' tale carries the same message of caring and concern and will likely worm its way into the hearts of readers able to persist through the problems and pain. (Fantasy. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
After forging a brilliant career as a cartoonist, most notably with Bloom County, Breathed applied his well-honed artistic skills to picture books and now takes his first stab at novel writing. His worldview of the lovable loser skewering pomposity is a natural fit for middle-graders, as is the dog-centric nature of this tale. The plot follows Sam the Lion (actually a dachsund), admired by dog-show types for his rare genetic tuft of hair, who is cast out by his adoptive family due to the machinations of a jealous poodle. Over the next few years, any number of terrible/zany adventures befall Sam (including losing a leg and having a soup ladle tied on in its place) before he's reunited with his owner and justice is done. The story is essentially an animated cartoon in prose form (complete with a mutts-piled-on-top-of-each-other-dressed-as-a-human gag), but Breathed proves an able writer, laying on plenty of over-the-top ebullience that should perk the ears of kids' inner underdog. A bevy of Breathed's signature bulbous illustrations a few in color add some body to the story.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2009 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
PERFECTION is overrated. Just ask Sam the Lion, the ne plus ultra of wiener dogs. An Austrian red dachshund sporting the ultra-rare Duüglitz tuft, he seems destined to win the Westminster dog show someday. Things don't work out that way. Through a series of misfortunes, Sam becomes outcast, tuftless and three-legged, clunking around with a ladle strapped to his stump in Berkeley Breathed's engaging new book, "Flawed Dogs: The Novel." It may be unclear why the title is "Flawed Dogs: The Novel," as if there were also "Flawed Dogs: The Opera" or "Flawed Dogs: The Tea Cozy." But Breathed, better known as the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who gave the world Opus the Penguin and Bill the Cat, has touched on the subject before. In his 2003 picture book, "Flawed Dogs: The Year-End Leftovers at the Piddleton 'Last Chance' Dog Pound," he presented a verse catalog of lovable misfit dogs and happened to include a three-legged dachshund. (Breathed is a thrifty soul: some of the characters in his first nationally syndicated comic, "Bloom County," originally appeared in "The Academia Waltz," his strip from the University of Texas at Austin student newspaper, where we occasionally crossed paths in the 1970s.) In "The Novel," Breathed, through words and lush illustrations, tells a story that will charm many readers and perhaps annoy others, depending on one's taste for whimsy and manifestos about animal adoption. In the story, Heidy, an orphan, is brought to tiny Piddleton, Vt., after several unhappy years at the St. Egregious Home for Troubly Girls, where she distinguished herself by rigging the nuns' toilets to flush backward. She has been called back to live with her uncle, a former dog breeder who became a recluse after sending Heidy's parents to their doom in a tragic schnauzer-related incident. The relationship between Heidy and Sam begins with an unexpected dog kiss. "Not on the mouth, with the common paint-roller application of dog spit. The Big Kahuna, as Labradors call it. No, this was a gently executed upward swipe of the last quarter-inch of tongue on the tiny band of flesh between the nostrils : the forbidden promised land of dog affection." Heidy wipes her nose and pronounces the moment "completely gross." But a line has been crossed, "a baby step taken into life's endless possibilities for wonder and joy and surprise that could no more be reversed than one's first taste of chocolate." From such heights, the story descends into often tragic events, punctuated by the wickedness that poodles do. Be forewarned: Younger readers will be horrified by Sam's suffering - he is betrayed, shot, mangled in a trap, subjected to lab experiments, hit by a car and even entered in a dog fight. He might as well be named Job. But Sam finds company in his misery at the National Last-Ditch Dog Depository - "not just any dog pound," an occupant explains. "It's the country's worst. It's where they send the hopeless cases." Together, in the best zeroes-versus-heroes tradition, Sam and company attack the temple of perfection: the Westminster Dog Show. Wackiness ensues, though the question of whether all dogs go to heaven must eventually be asked. In the end - am I giving too much away? - Sam and Heidy learn that in an imperfect world, a lack of love is the only true flaw. And being loved for who you are beats a Duüglitz tuft any day. John Schwartz is The Times's national legal correspondent.