Book Review: Hide and Seek by Amy Shojai

                        

 

Hide and Seek is the sequel to Lost and Found. I couldn’t buy this book fast enough when I found out it was for sale. I love how Amy Shojai weaves the story from both September and Shadow’s point of view in a smooth way. Not many writers can do that.

I would have devoured this book in one session if I didn’t have to work. So it took three days but WOW! September and Shadow make a great team and working though their own issues that haunt them makes for a riveting story line.

Hinted at in the first book Lost and Found September’s past has landed squarely in her hometown just a month after September’s live radio broadcast of nearly being killed. Wild animals and pets start acting strangely along with a rise of Alzheimer’s in the town's population or is it something else?

Can September and Shadow learn to trust ever again? What about Macy? Will she ever let Shadow have a good doggy sniff of her? To find out you will have to read Hide and Seek for yourself. I can’t wait for the next book about these characters.

 

Have a Chittering Good Day,

Jo and the crew

Update: Yesterday we started a campaign to get to Blog Paws with a goal of selling 300 ferrets  with adding new ones besides the choice of fabric. So here is Hearts

Book Review

I was looking for ferret themed stories and came across a series of books by one of my favorite authors, Richard Bach.

If the name sounds familiar, that is because he wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I was delighted to find that he had written about ferrets. In doing my research, I found that eight ferrets own him himself.

Air Ferrets Aloft is the second book in the series and the reason I’ve chosen it for this review is that November is Aviation Month.

Air Ferrets Aloft is about two ferrets that fly two different types of planes and routes. Stormy is a cargo plane pilot who doesn’t let any kind of weather stop her. Captain Strobe flies a passenger jet and accepts what the sky has for him.

Both are dedicated to flying and when a flight grounding storm puts them in each other’s world it is up to the angel ferrets to get them together.

Even though this is supposed to be a children’s book it is a fun read and Richard’s experience with ferrets shows through brightly.

Richard Bach is also a pilot himself and this last August was in a plane crash that he is still recovering from.

Enlightened Ferret sends Well wishes to him and his family.

Have a Chittering Good Day,

Jo

Barkonomics Review

Many of us are examining ways to save money due to the economy and while we are cutting costs in nearly every aspect of our spending, we may not be thinking about how to save when it comes to our dogs.

Barkonomics is a fun and easy book to read. The authors Paris Permenter and John Bigley have complied an insightful and helpful nuggets of over 300 money saving tips for dog owners who wish to be financial secure in caring for Fido.
Many of the tips are common sense but overlooked, as they are hidden costs that many of us don’t even realize is there.
Once such tip is the elimination of dematting fees I didn’t realize that groomers could charge up to 30% for doing something that costs you nothing by brushing your dog out every day.
I also like the easy to do recipes for making dry shampoo and flea preventative with stuff that is usually already in the home and isn’t toxic.
These authors know what they are talking about, as they have been one of the top Web’s dog sites as publishers of DogTipper.com and use the same information to care for their own dogs.
I am glad I had the opportunity to read this wonderfully eye-catching book and I say it is time for you to go fetch this book to add to your own library of must haves.
Disclosure: I received a free copy of Barkonomics to review with no other compensation. The opinion is mine alone and may differ from others who review this book.
Have a Chittering Good Day,
Jo

Nurturing Paws Review

I received Nurturing Paws in the mail. This slim book is full of poems and essays written from the hearts of those who have had the opportunity to have animals in their lives.

Each of these poems and essays resonated in me as I read them. At the time I thought it might have been because of the nasty head cold I had along with my reaction to the cold medicine. Then after I read it a second and a third time I decided that it wasn’t the cold or medicine but the fact the words came from affection for each pet from the individual writers were true and they conveyed them well.

Many of the poems and essays are dedicated to dogs, cats, and birds but there are many other animals not represented such as rodents, reptiles, and of course my obsession, ferrets but that didn’t distract from my enjoyment of this book.

I read different poems to Manny and Marcuz and while Marcuz might not have heard the words he sat with his head against my throat while I read and Manny curled up in my lap and looked like he was reading along with me.

I’ve read to them before and if it isn’t interesting to them they get down and go play. So to me it was a good sign that they also were enjoying the book. We pet parents are allowed to believe what we want about our fur kids.

Nurturing Paws is a nice book to give as a gift to the pet lover, rescuer, caregiver, or anyone that loves poetry. The book is easy to read and you can start anywhere within the book. With each passage you will smile, cry, or get angry but in the end you feel that the writer’s emotion is genuine. Nurturing Paws can be found at Whispering Angel Books

Paw Rating: 5 a ferret’s treasure.

Disclosure: I was given a free copy of Nurturing Paws to review and received no other compensation. The opinion here is my own and may or may not be the same as yours.

Have a Chittering Good Day,
Jo

Review of The Medium Next Door

     I was asked if I would like the opportunity to review Maureen Hancock’s new book “The Medium Next Door”. The book showed up on the day I found out that my cousin had decided that he couldn’t live in this world any longer. I went to his funeral that was in another state four hours away and with my roomie being the driver I was left with two options: Think or read. I chose the latter.

     Maureen’s story telling was easy to read and allows one to follow Maureen’s progression in accepting the special gift she had been given. The personal stories sprinkled throughout the book from people she has helped were insightful into the world of those grieving. I also liked the easy to follow and do exercises at the end of the chapters.

     I believed that one of the reasons I had been asked to review this book was because I am an animal blogger. With that said I thought there would be at least one chapter about the communication with animals but the only mention of animals were from the connections Maureen made with human spirits telling her about their beloved pets waiting to meet them. I also found that the book seemed to rehash certain things to the point of redundancy.

    I enjoyed learning about Maureen Hancock  and her abilities. Although I did find it presumptuous about how I had read about one particular spirit the number 41 would should up everywhere in my life. I’ve seen that number exactly once and I read the book twice to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

     “The Medium Next Door” was insightful into the life of Maureen Hancock and her book made its way into my hands on one of the worst days for my family and me. While I don’t know if I would have bought this book just the back cover blurb and I would only recommend this book to those who are interested in communication with spirits and/or wanted to know about the afterlife.

Ferret Paw Rating: 3 paws

 

Have a Chittering good day

Book Review

     I just finished reading Dog On It by Spencer Quinn. What a well-written book from the point of a dog. Yes you read that right a dog. Chet is a lovable character that knows his human really well and is willing to follow him anywhere.

     Dog On It is the type of book that draws you into the story and if you are able to put the book down before finishing it you are thinking about what is going on until you pick it back up.

     Chet is ungraduated K-9 dog whose human is Bernie a private eye. These two partners take on the case of the missing Madison from her mother only to have it not being a missing person after all…or is it?

     Chet’s wandering mind gives insights in to the thoughts of dogs and how they might think. You can tell how much the two trust each other by their interactions.

     Dog On It is a good read. You want a copy to read? One lucky reader will win a copy of Dog On It.

     Leave a comment below with one ferret fact that you have learned from this blog or somewhere else.

     On Tuesday I’ll used a random number generator to pick the winning comment.

Keep on Chittering

Jo

Setting a Course

     When I started this blog, it was so that I would have a jumping off point. To what I wasn’t sure. I only hoped it would be the best I could make it. Now I keep being stuck for ideas and for words. I cannot write like Richard Bach whose pose and stories flow off the page into becoming something real for the readers.

     His book Curious Lives is free from the evil we see and hear everyday. In the forward, he states that if he had to watch one more bombing he is going Kaboom. A so came a slim little volume one of Curious Lives. I had heard of it but at the time, other things were more important for my dollar. When I finally had the few dollars to buy the book, it was gone. I knew the book’s name but not the author’s. Even when Curious Lives hit the stores and the name Richard Bach was on display. I didn’t make the connection but in a world of synchronicity it wasn’t long before my blog and that book crossed paths.

     I like to do tons of research that is why I don’t seem to be able to keep to any kind of real schedule on my blog. It was through my research about Curious Lives that I finally remembered Richard Bach’s other book that helped me live my childhood as imaginative as I wanted it to be. I was able to fly anywhere I wanted to. Not only did I have Jonathan Livingston Seagull in book form I also had it on record.

     Yes, I am dating myself but in the 1970’s, there were no such things as compact disks players. You had two choices a record player that played 38s, 45, or 78s. Jonathan Livingston Seagull was on the big 78. The edges scraped the sides of the child’s record player that could be moved from room to room as it played leaving a single connected black line inside that case. Okay so I made it connected where there was a blank in the corners of that box. What would you expect out of six year old.

     Was it from that book that I decided I wanted to be a writer? No it was the reason I continued to write stories no one else  but Emily my imaginary friend, at the time,wanted to hear.

     It is said that writers have a muse with a name and a face clearly seen to them.Who listen without interrupting, pushing gently when something hard was happening. Badgering and harassing when something was mediocre that could become great with the right push.

     Only to disappear when the writer pushed back or got it into his/her head they should write a certain way cause that’s what the world wants to read. Its only when the writer realizes that they are not writing for the world but for themselves and allowing the world experience it with them. Does the muse come from the shadows.

     I had forgotten that part of being a writer until I read Curious Lives. I think all writers and anyone who has a dream can fall into the trap of being afraid of allowing it to come true.

     Mr. Bach knows how to bring a reader into the book with his unobtrusive descriptions and ideas. He captured the nature of ferrets well in those permanent words. I am sure his muses were his own small fur children. I can see how each of the stories could have come from some antic of ferret.

     Writer ferret? Easy stealing pens, pencils, and paper, running across the keyboard stopping to look at the computer screen and seeing the letters run across the page. Moving forward to try and touch those words only to hit a button that highlights the whole document in black background and white lettering and then leaning back on to the space bar to watch it all disappear.

     My Bummer Bandit was like that. He had to have the pen I was using at the moment. When ferrets get determined they will hiss but it so cute you can only laugh…okay only a true ferret lover would understand the hiss.

     Bum would curl up on my lap while I typed just watching the words appear. I learned early on to hit the save button often. It only takes one paw to wipe out several pages of work and a black and white screen suddenly gone white needs investigating. Until my computer crashed, I had pictures of Bum with his nose pressed up against the computer screen and digging at it. It was almost as he was going to go find those missing words.

     Bum was my writing ferret. He watched me write. He gave me my ideas for characters. I own a shirt that says My Ferret Ate My Homework. I thought it a cute change from the normal My Dog excuse. But as things go it happened. For whatever reason Bum escaped his cage one night and ate two pages of my biology homework that was due the next day. I went to school the next day with what left of my homework paw prints and all and wore my shirt that I had altered with a mailing label sticker that said HE REALLY DID. Luckily, my professor saw the humor in it, took the last pages of the homework, and gave me until the end of the day to rewrite the first two pages from the computer lab on campus. I miss Bum a lot.

I am still not sure where I want this blog to go but I do know that it is my space to leave my own prints in the ink.

Jo