A Dog's Life: The Autobiography of a Stray

Best book me and my daughters have ever read...they could not stop reading it..they would want to read it all the time..wonderful book..anyone with recomendations on similar books please let me know..

after a somewhat slow beginning, a lovely story of a dog's adventures in search of a place to belong.

This book is wonderful! I read it to my third grade class as a read a loud and it was amazing what happened! My kids started looking at things in a whole different light...especially any living thing. What this book does is tells the story from a stray dog's point of view. The author writes from

Show More

the dog's perspective so well that it really makes you stop and think about what life is really like for all living things!

Show Less

This book is wonderful! I read it to my third grade class as a read a loud and it was amazing what happened! My kids started looking at things in a whole different light...especially any living thing. What this book does is tells the story from a stray dog's point of view. The author writes from

Show More

the dog's perspective so well that it really makes you stop and think about what life is really like for all living things!

Show Less

Good, solid animal fiction book. Told from the dog's point of view. This book was very popular with students. They love to read about Squirrel's adventures. Good read.

I loved this book... I was a school librarian and this was a read aloud to the 4th & 5th grade classes. They loved it and so did I.

really good book..... one of the best books i ever read

This was a great book. I always like reading books narrated by animals.

If you love dogs this is a great recommendation for you.
its an enjoyable book that almost anyone could enjoy reading.

I think this will be excellent!

Heartbreaking and heartwarming. Squirrel's life begins with love. What happens after her mom doesn't return is the heart of the story: and contain her adventures describing the challenges, friends, foes and family she meets.

Good read!

I read this one aloud to my boys...we all had a tear in our eye when we finished it...great for families who own or want to own a pet.

A very fast enjoyable read.It is placed in the young adult section at my local library but I found it to be more juvenile. My heart went out to squirrel and all the trials she faced. The only thing I didn't like was the ending. I felt it was a little abrupt and I would have liked for it to be a bit

Show More

more.

I was thinking the whole time I was reading how nice it would be for another book to be about bone and his experiences once they were separated,hopefully, that is what the next book in the series is about. I'll know shortly as I intend to check the next installment out and continue the series asap.

I agree with many reviews that this would make an excellent read along with kids. A movie would be awesome as well. Wonderful book and highly recommendable.

Show Less

A Dogs Life is about a dog named Squirrel and her brother Bone and her mother,Stream. She's born in a wooden shed by the human house, which her mother always stays away from. Then she has Bone and Squirrel in the shed, they meet some friends ( cats ) in the shed to play with. Then her mother dies

Show More

and they must figure out what to do without her.So Bone and Squirrel leave and go out into the wilderness and they become a stray.Squirrel meats friends that are trustworthy, (including humans,) and meets friends that are untrustworthy.I Love this book because it is a story about how you can survive and a trusting story. Squirrel is a great friend and a child. I love a dogs life because it is scary, sad and it teaches you survival skills.

Show Less

This book is interesting because it features events that could happen to humans, from birth to abandonment, to injury, to loss of a loved one, to finding acceptance and a home, but puts a spin on that by making the main character a dog.

For younger students, it might do well as just a straight

Show More

read, but for older readers, the students could also explore the emotional capacity of animals and examine the interconnectivity of everything in the world (the actions of the humans impacted the dog's life significantly).

Show Less

This was a read-aloud for my fourth grade students. I cried a few times (as did the students). Quite a few checked it out of the library after we finished it, so I suppose that speaks well to how good it was.

I loved this book as a kid because it was a realistic fiction autobiography of a dog. The viewpoint was straight from a dog's perspective, and I think Martin does an excellent job of capturing that thought process and perspective in words.

An amazing book!!! A total must read!!!!!!!

This was a great story - a little melancholy, but not overly so. The end is positive. It is told from the dog's point of view. If you like dogs, you will love this one.

To quote Yogi Berra, this is exactly the sort of thing you'll like, if you like this sort of thing.
It's hard to imagine any book in which the title serves more accurately as a description of the book as well. This is the autobiography of a dog, from puppyhood to old age. It's in the "Black Beauty"

Show More

vein, an animal telling the story in first person narration, of all the eventful things that happened in her life.
There were two drawbacks for me. First, the narrator (whose name changes several times during the story depending on who, if anyone, owns her at the moment) tells the entire story, but there's minimal character development. Beyond being generally a "good dog" we don't get any real personality from her. And second, it is, well, a dog's life. Plot is loose, big gaps of time are skipped over if nothing much happens during them. As it is, She has a much more eventful life that I suspect the average dog does, going through several owners, and spending most of her life as a stray.
We got her whole life, but I was left wondering what the real point of it was. Did Squirrel (her original name given by her mother) grow and develop as a result of the many changes in her life... well, not really.
Kids who are obsessed with dogs will probably love this book, as my daughter did. But for those looking for strong characters, intriguing interactions between characters, fascinating supporting cast and great plot twists... pass this one over and look elsewhere.

Show Less

This book is a cute, heart warming but a heart breaking story.
It allows readers to understand and sympathise with dogs.It's a great book for everyone, especially dog lovers and dog owners.
This book is extremely well written, with lots of description, making the reader feel like you are in

Show More

Squirrel's situation.

It is an epic and cute book and I could not put it down from the first page.

It has an awesome and adorable ending that makes the reader feel satisfied.

LZ

Show Less

Another lovely Scholastic Book Fair find from back in my youth!

Squirrel is a stray dog, and this is her memoir. Her life story is rough and tough but will inspire young readers. When she gets separated from her brother, she must go on an epic adventure to survive.

This book made me so sad as a kid

Show More

and as an adult. It brings all the feels and will just wreck you. While it is beautifully and well written, it's still very sad to think of the poor stray dogs out there. Ann M. Martin makes this story feel so real, it's honestly really nice. She's super talented!

Overall, this book is a great middle grade read! If you want something touching that is about animals and will pull at your heart strings, this book is for you!

Three out of five stars.

Show Less