Dogs Have the Strangest Friends: & Other True Stories of Animal Feelings [Hardcover]

Shirley Felts (Author), Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2000 | Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

The author of the adult best-sellers When Elephants Weep and Dogs Never Lie About Love has reached into his treasure trove of stories about the emotional lives of animals to tell fifteen fascinating stories to young readers. Jeffrey Masson's graceful, accessible prose illuminates the capacity of both wild and domestic animals to live by their emotions--to love, share joy, feel sorrow or loneliness, and show compassion.

Young people have little difficulty recognizing or believing that animals have feelings. They will respond to these real-life tales about a mother cat who saves her kittens from a fire; a parrot who says "I'm sorry"; the special friendship between a dog and a lion; and many others. The stories can be read aloud to younger children or enjoyed by independent readers. Beautifully illustrated with lush watercolor paintings, this book makes the perfect gift and is ideally suited to the animal lover in every child.

Illustrated by Shirley Felts

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Setting the tone for these stories-cum- animal-rights agenda, Masson's long-winded introduction posits that animals "have nearly all the feelings we do, and maybe even some that we don't." Drawing primarily from published works, including his books for adults (When Elephants Weep; Dogs Never Lie About Love), Masson describes intriguing friendships between various species, animals' acts of courage and compassion and other incidents revealing a range of animal emotions. Throughout, the author offers personal, often highly speculative interpretations (e.g., after discussing elephants' well-documented interest in elephant bones, he writes, "I think they are trying to figure out why humans kill elephants for their tusks"). He is given to rambling, sometimes fatuous musings (for instance, writing of two adult peregrine falcons whose father was temporarily unable to feed them in their youth, he says: "Probably they now knew what hunger meant and would never allow their children to go hungry. Or so I like to think"). While many will agree with his politics (he's vegetarian, anti-fur and anti-animal testing), the arguments are presented without balance ("Does this poor planet really need another kind of floor polish, one of the many products tested on animals?"). The most effective element here is the least heavy-handed: Felts's (The Blue Whale) tender, softly focused watercolors of animals in their native habitats. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-5-More than a dozen stories have been collected as examples of some unusual animals that displayed very human characteristics. Whether the author is telling about Freddie the Fly, who developed a bond with a man, or illustrating the friendship of a 600-pound bear and a tiny kitten, he relates the incidents in human terms. For example, when talking about a baby elephant that was saved by its mother from a flooding river, he writes, "Elephant mothers seem to love their babies as much as human mothers love theirs." For the fly, he remarks "The fly, I venture to say, trusted him-we might even say that the fly liked being with the man-." These views on the feelings of animals are one-sided, unscientific, and simplistic. While the occasional watercolor paintings are lovely, the writing throughout is sappy and often condescending. Source notes are included for each incident.
Pam Spencer, Young Adult Literature Specialist, Virginia Beach, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Juvenile (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525457453
• ISBN-13: 978-0525457459
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,126,962 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Masson has had at least four lives: first as a boy raised to become a "spiritual leader" (see his denunciation of such a life in My Father's Guru). While in the middle of his disillusion, he became a professor of Sanskrit at the University of Toronto. At the same time he trained to become a Freudian analyst. Upon graduation he became Projects Director of the Freud Archives, and was scheduled to move into Freud's house in London when fate intervened: Masson found documents which seemed to show that Freud was right in believing that many women had been sexually abused as children, and that he was wrong to give up this belief, perhaps impelled by societal displeasure at his discoveries. Saying this publicly turned Masson into a psychoanalytic pariah, and he gave up both his professorship and his analytic career to delve into the far more fascinating world of animal emotions. Two of his books, WHEN ELEPHANTS WEEP and DOGS NEVER LIE ABOUT LOVE, were New York Times best-sellers. He became vegetarian as a result of his research, and later, when he looked into the feelings of farm animals, he became even stricter, and no longer eats or uses any animal product (vegan). Harpercollins published his most recent book: THE DOG WHO COULDN'T STOP LOVING: HOW DOGS HAVE CAPTURED OUR HEARTS FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. He lives on a beach in New Zealand with his two sons, Ilan and Manu, and his German wife, Leila, a pediatrician who works with children on the autistic spectrum (using the bio-medical approach), Benjy, a golden lab, and three cats. They often travel to the States, Europe, and Australia. He is now fascinated in the "us/them" phenomenon, between humans but also between humans and animals.