Misty and Me, by Barbara Girion

[rachelmanija]

More than anything in the world, Kim wants a puppy of her own

I bought this book at a library book sale because the cover rang a bell. I knew I'd read it as a child and was surprised that I recalled nothing about it. As I began to read, more faint bells rang.

Kim desperately wants a puppy, but her family won't allow it. The entire book is about how she wants a dog, her parents won't let her have a dog, she falls in love with a puppy and scrimps and saves and even hires an elderly dog-sitter so she can have her dog in secret. It's cute, if not terribly memorable. And in terms of engagement with premise, up until the last chapter it's 100% - the book promises a girl and her dog story, and that's exactly what it is.

AND THEN.

The dog-sitter has a heart attack and the secret comes out and she has to move cross-country to be cared for by her daughter... and Kim GIVES THE DOG-SITTER HER DOG. The last page has Kim wiping away tears while going off with her old friend with whom she has no interests in common due to aging apart, with the apparent message that she's learned her lesson that people are more important than animals and to forget about dogs and focus on building relationships with humans.

THAT IS NOT WHAT I WANT FROM A DOG BOOK.

Engagement with premise: This isn't so much a failure to engage with the premise as an utter betrayal of the premise. WTF!!!

Misty and Me

Comments

[sheliak]

WTF! That's almost a parody of "wait, we need a depressing moral for this kids' book."

[rachelmanija]

And it was so out of left field!

[sholio]

Wow, it sounds like this is the dog version of portal fantasy where the message is that you're supposed to leave magic behind as you grow up. DO NOT WANT!

[rachelmanija]

It was exactly like that! It was especially aggravating because the entire rest of it involved all this very realistic detail of how to care for a dog and what that entails, so it seemed almost like a "how to care for the puppy of your dreams" manual. Ha-ha! You shouldn't even have a puppy!

[sholio]

AAAAAAAAAAA

[naomikritzer]

This cover looks familiar enough that I suspect I saw it at the library growing up and rejected it on the grounds that it's a dog book, therefore they're probably going to kill off the dog at the end.

(Seriously, the number of upbeat animal books I probably would have liked, that I refused to read because my parents bought me THE YEARLING, is rather high! This one sounds like an excellent one to skip, though.)

[lemonsharks]

to me, that moral reads more like, "the person who provides daily care, food, and housing to the pet is the rightful owner of the pet."

But I'd have to read the book myself to know if that is what plays out in the text.

[rachelmanija]

The kid was also caring for the dog, she was just paying a dog sitter to do what she couldn't. If you applied the same standard to children, their babysitters would be their legal parents.

[sheron]

Perhaps written for a parent who wants their child to stop asking for a puppy? IDEK.

[loligo]

OMG look at that puppy face!! Who wouldn't keep that dog?!

The weird thing is, as a kid I was definitely annoyed and upset by books where bad things happened to animals and I tried to avoid them when possible... but I find them even more upsetting as an adult. Especially dog books.

We had a family dog that I loved as a kid, but I think there might be something different about being in a parental role to a pet... Now that I've had two dogs of my own, I can't even cope with dogs being unhappy, let alone physically harmed.

[cloudsinvenice]

Wow, that is just terrible! In an odd way (and I think it's probably the "betrayal of the reader" thing) it reminds me of My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece, which is the only book I've ever physically thrown. Basically it's about a young boy whose teenage sister has died, and the boy has a cat, and OBVIOUSLY the loss of a big sister isn't enough suffering because the cat dies and everything is awful and I don't know or care how it ended. Like, we know loss is a terrible and all-pervading aspect of life, but jesus, couldn't you have left the kid his cat?

[copperfyre]

:(

How unfair! I'm glad child me did not run across this.

[evelyn_b]

Aw, no. :(