📖 Novel of the Week: Soldier Dog by Sam Angus

I finally managed to read Soldier Dog by Sam Angus, a book that caught my attention just with its beautiful cover (both in the English and Italian edition). What shoul have been a good story about a boy and his dog turned out a wonderful description of a young boy's journey during the horrors of World War I and how loyalty and reliability between a human and a dog can literally save someone's life, in more than one way.

England/France, 1917-18
Stanley Ryder is forced to live alone with his bossy and depressed father, after his mother died and his older brother Tom enrolled in the army to fight in France. The only "thing" Stanley's dad is interested in is their dog Rocket, a local run competitions champ, but that as well slides away when Stan forgets to keep the dog in and, after running away, she comes back pregnant.

When the puppies arrive, Stan's father brings them to a gathering of hunters to give them away, but Stanley keeps the only male of the litter and names him Soldier...however, after several weeks, Stanley's dad takes it away and that's the trigger that makes Stanley take drastic decision: to enroll as well in the army to go and live with Tom.

Destiny wanted Stanley to be amazing with animals (thanks his innate empathy with them) so he gets into the "canine unit", to train messangers dogs. This is war, where humans and animals lives are really in danger of death so it's of extreme importance that the dogs deliver their messages quickly and promptly.

Stanley wasn't ready to go first line in war: that will make him rethink his decisions and stumble when bad things start to happen...

👍👎My Thoughts

I'm a dog person (even if I've never had one...yet) so I enjoyed this book a lot, but I'm not saying that only dog people will do...au contraire! 

I'll add this to my "book I've cried for" list because it has such an emotional end and I unsuccessfully tried to fight tears back. Dogs' well known characteristics (such as loyalty and trustworthy) are protagonists in their own way and are very relevant as we get to know the animals Stanley ends up working with. 

Anyway, I found the first part's descriptions lacking in clearness as I had to re read a few lines more than once to understand what was going on.
As soon as the story starts getting a bit more define, everything takes a whole new path and I loved it! I could not put it down...not that I wanted to do it in the first place. The young man/dog relationship is heart melting and war is for sure not a place for sentimentalisms.


My vote: 9/10

Related movie

War Horse (2011) by Steven Spielberg

Photo credits: goodreads.com