Win a copy of Huck!

We recently posted a review of Huck: The Remarkable True Story of How One Lost Puppy Taught a Family – and a Whole Town – About Hope and Happy Endings by Janet Elder.   I gave Huck our highest rating as a read, Highly Recommended.   This one is so good that David Letterman said, “You’ll feel better about everything after you read this.”

Now, thanks to the publisher (Broadway Books), we have three (3) copies of Huck to give away to our readers.   This trade paperback is 301 pages long – with a new Afterward – and has a retail value of $15.00.   We’re also adding two additional copies of Huck that we picked up, and a hard-to-find pre-publication galley (Advance Review Copy) that we located; the latter version runs 295 pages in length.   So, if Sasha the kitten is right – she’s counting on her paws – we’ll have not 1, 2, 3 or even 5 winners, but six (6) winners in this contest!

To enter this giveaway, tell us why you would like to win a copy of this particular story.   This is open-book, so feel free to read or re-read the review (“The Pick of the Litter”) that I posted on this site on October 30, 2011; and/or any other reviews or information that you can locate on the internet.   Post your response as a comment below including an e-mail address where you can be contacted, or send your reply as an e-mail to: Josephsreviews@gmail.com .   This will count as a first entry.

For a second entry, tell us about the most important or unique animal you’ve encountered in your life.   This can be an animal that you or your family owned, or one that was owned by a neighbor, or even one that you visited in a zoo.   What did you learn from this animal?   Again, you can post your response below or submit it as an e-mail message. In order to be eligible to enter and win this contest, you must live in the continental United States or Canada and be able to supply a residential (street) address if contacted.   Books will not be shipped to a P. O. box or business-related address.   You have until 12:00 p.m./midnight on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 to submit your entry or entries.   However, the winners may be selected and notified before then depending on the quality of the entries received – so don’t delay!  

This is it for the “complex” contest rules.   Let’s hope that you’re one of the readers that will soon be adding a copy of Huck: The Remarkable Story of… One Lost Puppy to your library!

Joseph Arellano

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The Big Cat Book

Leo the Snow Leopard: The True Story of an Amazing Rescue, told by Juliana Hatkoff, Isabella Hatkoff, and Craig Hatkoff (Scholastic Press; $17.99; 40 pages)

“Snow leopards by nature are survivors.   They withstand almost impossible conditions – frigid snow, harsh winds, unsteady ground.”

As a very young cat (my humans call me a kitten), I was anxious to read this book about one of my big cat distant cousins.   I look like a small gray-blue-black leopard, and this book’s about Leo, a cool spotted snow leopard.   Like me, Leo was found wandering around without his mother, an orphan.   But unlike me, Leo was located mewing and hungry in the snowy Karakoram mountains of northern Pakistan.   That’s a lot higher place than I’ve ever been!

Leo happened to be found by a goat herder, a nice man who gave Leo a new, safe home with lots of goat’s milk to drink.   (I don’t know if goat’s milk is tasty or not.)   Sadly, Leo wound up getting sick when he was just a baby cub – all of seven weeks old – so he was turned over to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) offices in Pakistan.

The WWF veterinarians (ooh, those white-coated doctors scare me) fixed him up, then got the idea of sending Leo to a zoo in the U. S. that was the first to exhibit a snow leopard.   And that was?   Yes, you guessed it, the Bronx Zoo!

Finally, Leo got lucky ’cause he was put in a big natural forest setting at the zoo where he, naturally, chose to stay high up on a man-made cliff.   That is, until he got an enclosure mate – the gorgeous female snow leopard named Shelby.   Leo and Shelby have a  lot of fun together, and they might be thinking about producing some snow leopard cubs.   (I have no idea what the process is for this…)

Anyway, this is a neat-o book for anyone who likes cats, especially the small humans in your household.   A  librarian told me that this book is recommended for young humanoids between the ages of four and eight and/or for those in Kindergarten through grade five.   What does grade five mean?

This book’s filled with four extra pages of information on endangered animals and zoos for the older kids and adults to read.   I read them and found out that I’m not endangered – whew!; but, snow leopards are.   There are only a few thousand of them left on this planet.   Anyone reading this book, human or animal, will realize that we need to save the snow leopards, especially the loveable big ones like Leo.

I’ll see you at the Bronx Zoo sometime, my furry cousin!

I loved this book as much as a bowl of Tillamook cheddar cheese.

Highly recommended.

Sasha the kitten

This children’s book was purchased by Sasha’s dad of the human persuasion.   One of the books in this series, Winter’s Tale: How One Little Dolphin Learned to Swim Again, has been made into a motion picture (Dolphin Tale).   Another, Owen & Mzee, was a #1 New York Times bestselling book.

My Best Friend

Do You Have a Cat? by Eileen Spinelli (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers; $16.00; 32 pages)

“A cat who likes to caterwaul is better than no cat at all!”

There’s an old saying that dogs and their owners begin to look like each other.   Well, I may be just a kitten but even I know that’s not true just for dogs…  And this book, Do You Have a Cat?, proves me to be right.   This book shows us – and especially the young humans in the reading audience – that 14 very famous people owned felines (that’s a cat, to you).   And, guess what?   These famous people looked just like their cats and vice-versa!

If you don’t believe me, just look at the swell drawings in this book.   You’ll see that everyone from Cleopatra to Queen Victoria and Charles Lindbergh and Albert Schweitzer and President Calvin Coolidge owned very special cats, all of whom just happened to be the spitting-image of their home owners!   And you’ll learn some very cool stuff, too, like the fact that President Coolidge went on the radio to tell the folks when his cat was lost.   Luckily, for Cal, Tiger was soon found and returned to the White House!

So, I’m a young cat but I know good books.   This one’s as good as a bowl of half-and-half!

Highly recommended.

Sasha (the kitten) Arellano

A review copy was provided by the publisher.   Geraldo Valerio is the illustrator of this children’s book, recommended for ages 4 through 8.