Bob Son of Battle

Rating:
Summary: I liked this book
Review: I liked Bob Son of Battle because I thought Bob was cute and nice. I didn't like when Bob was eating a lamb and blood was dripping.

Rating:
Summary: I remember it from my youth
Review: I live in Vermont. The adjoining forest contains an old grave marker which reads "Bob, Son of Battle". Anyone have an explanation?

Rating:
Summary: Good Versus Evil
Review: The best dog story ever written, bar none (I'm including Lassie Come Home and The Call of the Wild). What makes it so are two things: detail and duality. The book works on two levels, with one level being a very realistically drawn portrait of the lives of the shepherds of England's Yorkshire dales, and the other being a interlocking tale of two men, one good and the other evil, and their dogs, also good and evil, respectively.

What really kicks this story up a notch from the usual dog story is the depth of the good-and-evil theme, with the point being that in even the best of men there are weaknesses, and that in even the worst of men there are strengths.

A thinking man's dog story, and a parable of tolerance far ahead of its time.

Note: The dialogue is written in the vernacular of the place and time (late nineteenth century England), and is not always easy to wade through. It's well worth doing so, however.