The Dog Who Belonged to No One by Amy Hest
This book is so great that I had to blog about it on both book blogs. It was a huge hit with 1st graders, but I know it would work with older grades, too.
Soft, gentle, warm, evocative: it seems everything Amy Hest writes is just oozing with all these qualities. The Dog Who Belonged to No One is a charming story of a dog who has no one and a girl who is lonely and how they find each other. But it’s not just any girl meets dog book–the language and imagery is nothing short of stunning. When I read it with first graders, we talked about what the pictures in our mind were (warm bread, soft porch light, curled up in the rain…) It is told in see-saw fashion with one page describing the dog and one page describing the girl, Lia. Lots of layers to this book and a fantastic mentor text.
tara
Colleen
Claire
