Phil Earle

Story of Beau the stray dog who is rescued by Peggy just before the onset of WW2. When War hits, the directive comes for all non-essential animals to be put down as they are taking precious resoources. Peggy's family refuse and Peggy and her brother are sent to the coast away from London to live with their aunt. Beau becomes a sniffer dog, hunting out humans who are still alive when the bombs have destroyed houses but then catastrophe strikes when a bomb kills Peggy's father and mother. Beau and the cat Mabel with the help of a carrier pigeon Bomber, decide to try to travel and reach Peggy and her brother on the coast. But the journey is fraught with danger.
Lovely book that reminded me of the Michael Morpurgo novels.… (mais)

One of the Barrington Stoke super readable texts with sepia paper and dyslexic friendly font. Unfortunately, there is a lot of urban British slang in this book that may not translate well to my Australian teenage readers from my Library but nevertheless the story is engaging enough. I was interested to read the notes at the end where Phil Earle wrote that it was based on the true story of a woman who fought to keep her dead husband's voice being used on a train line in London. Nice twist with the author using the friendship between two teenage boys - one who has lost his father and gone off the rails and the other who looks for any way that he can save his mate from wrecking himself.… (mais)