Summer Reading Program: Animal Heroes

Last Program!

Between the summer activities, and me missing so many of these programs this year, it just seems like the summer has flown by.  Unreal that it's the last program already.


Two Bobbies
Kirby Larson & Mary Nethery, illustrated by Jean Cassels
ISBN: 9780802797544
Vaguely sepia-toned illustrations are gritty and lifelike, often with a distancing view.

Another true story, this time about a pair of bob-tailed friends (one cat and one dog) who were left behind in the evacuation of post-Katrina flooded New Orleans.  The story takes a biographical tone, and covers the pair from the hypothetical conjecture (their life before, their journeys before they were rescued) to their rescue, rehabilitation, move to a Utah rescue facility, and their re-homing with a dedicated lady who learned about them via a television broadcast.  A twist halfway through made some of the kids actually gasp when I read it, which I think is a first for me.

Next up we did Bertie Was a Watchdog again, because I might never again get the chance to bark for 45 seconds straight inside a library without getting hospitalized.

The Hermit Crab
Carter Goodrich
ISBN: 9781416938927
A shy hermit crab finds a strange shell, and unwittingly becomes a community hero.

This is an odd but cute little story.  Our hero is so shy and retiring that he doesn't even participate in community events, but prefers to watch them quietly and contentedly from the sidelines.  One day, he discovers a strange segmented "shell" (the top half of a superhero figure) that he loves, so he puts it on immediately.  Unknown to him, while he was happily re-shelling, a lobster-trap has descended from the surface and trapped the flounder.  He returns after the rest of the community retreats in terror, and they watch in awe as this heroic figure wanders around the terrifying trap for a few scant moments before banishing it back to the surface, with the flounder safely left behind.  The resulting parade and accolades scares the hermit so much that he hides deep inside the new shell, and escapes as soon as possible.  Really cute, and an interesting complement to another story I read recently: Robert Venditti's newest juvenile fiction / graphic novel crossover Miles Taylor and The Golden Cape.

And that's all she wrote for Heroes this year - we are DONE.  We'll be back next year with the next batch of books on whatever topic comes around next.