I had never heard of this book (or indeed this series) until Grover Finds a Home showed up on the Readings Children's Book Prize Shortlist for 2017. A lost dog story is always welcome for me, and it was the shortest of the shortlisted books and easy to slip in as a quick read during my week of comfort reads.
Grover Finds a Home is such a lovely story- imaginatively told from Grover's point of view. Grover is living a terrible life, always chained in a backyard, neglected, abused and mistreated by the Man with Big Boots. One night he escapes terrified during a thunderstorm and is picked up and taken to an animal shelter. He is malnourished, sick and has infected, sore ears but he wins over Annie, a worker at the shelter who decides to take him home.
He couldn't believe how nice it felt to rest his tired bones on a soft bed, in a warm house, with a full belly. This was all he'd ever wanted.
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| Picture Source |
With lovely illustrations by Johannes Leak Grover Finds a Home is perfect for beginner readers and any animal loving child. Master Wicker would have loved this as a read aloud bedtime story way back when. There are three books so far in the Grover McBane Rescue Dog series- Grover Finds a Home, Grover's New Friends and Grover, Benji and Nanna Jean.
Like any modern personality Grover McBane has his own instagram account. Somewhat dispiritingly he gets about more than I do. We have two rescue dogs at the Wicker house, both sitting with me right now.
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| They're almost impossible to photograph, Especially together. |
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| These are from last winter. Basking in the sun at the door. |
Claire Garth is the General Manager of Sydney Dogs and Cats Home, a large council pound and non-kill animal shelter in Southern Sydney. It has been in operation since 1946 and is currently on a major fundraising drive as they need to raise $3 million for a purpose built facility.
Mamamia did an interesting profile on Claire Garth and Grover McBane encouraging us all to get a rescue dog. It is a life changing decision- for both of you.
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| http://australianwomenwriters.com |
1 comment:
Thank you for adopting two dogs who needed homes! Grover Finds a Home sounds like as if it both has a positive message and makes for an enjoyable read. The drawings look good too. I always enjoy a heartwarming animal rescue story too. Thanks for sharing.
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