Mowat, Farley. The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be. Little, Brown and Company, 1957.
Reason read: April Fool’s Day and April is Dog Month.
How much of Farley Mowat’s The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be is imaginative exaggeration? It is hard to say, but nevertheless it is a delightful read for all ages. Mowat looks back at his childhood in Saskatoon with his faithful dog, Mutt, at his side. The addition of “four cent” Mutt, a goofy, intelligent pup full of personality, lends humor into an otherwise typical 1930s household. Mutt has a personality all his own and often gets his loyal and loving family in trouble, especially while duck hunting, tangling with skunks and anything having to do with boats. Every member of the Mowat family bonds with Mutt in special ways but my favorite stories centered around a pair of mischievous owls, Wols and Weeps, who the Mowat family somehow adopts.
Disclaimer: The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be is a bit dated. Hunting practices have changed and leash laws abound these days. The carefree attitudes of the 1930s are a thing of the past.
Confessional: I unexpectedly shed a few tears at the end of The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be. Like all young children with pets, they grow up and leave their animal behind. Humans outlast most furry friends, after all. I knew Mutt was getting old so I was expecting that kind of coming of age, circle of life ending. Not even close. No spoiler alert needed. Just read the book.
Author fact: Mowat also wrote Bay of Spirits which I am slated to read for the Challenge in July of 2031.
Book trivia: The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be was illustrated by Paul Galdone and first published in 1957.
Line I liked, “I did not speak, for I had a certain intuition that silence would be safer” (p 63), “…and in twenty nine years a man can remember a good many things that ought to have happened” (p 177).
Music: “The Bonnets of Bonny Dundee.”
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in two chapters, “Canadian Fiction (p 50) and again in “Humor” (p 116). Also in Book Lust To Go in the simple chapter called “Newfoundland” (p 154).
~*LunaSea*~ 