Customer Reviews

A Home for Nathan

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

i thought a home for nathan was a great story for kids about the reality of homeless animals. ( so much so that i gave a year of my free time to do the illustrations) too often, this side of caring for a cat or dog ( or bunny rabbit after the easter holiday) is not taught to kids. it IS a life long commitment, hard but extremely rewarding. a home for nathan is great because it shows kids everything involved in having a pet, without being preachy. it is a serious message in a fun book. when i did the illustrations, i drew REAL people (though the original nathans owner was edited because "he would scare kids"). i wanted to show children that white people with blue hair, and black people with dreadlocks can be professional and responsible. also, though nathans new family is not "traditional" it is normal and filled with love! children learn about life through what they see. in a home for nathan they will see real people doing really great things!

I began using this book in my 1st grade classroom 2 years ago and I think my students benefit a great deal from it.
It is both enjoyable and educational.
A great introduction to the responsibilities of adopting and owning a pet.

I read this book to my five-year old. He loves animal books and this one immediately became his favorite. It is one of my favorites too, because the message is one of kindness. What a sweet book!! I especially recommend it to families that have adopted a pet from an animal shelter.

This delightful book brings awareness to children (and their parents!) about the need for responsibility and forethought when considering adopting an animal. Ms. Roll has presented this lesson with skillful story telling in a most entertaining fashion. The illustrations are totally charming. The author is to be applauded for this wonderful book and her work as a humane educator. All Paws Up!

I think its nice what many shelters do for their animals, but there are many animal shelters that are abusive and cruel. Animals in shelters are getting sick and the majority of animals going to shelters are going to die and those deaths are painful and in some cases horrific! What is even more alarming, and this is directly related to this book, people are turning their pets in to shelters at a rate higher than ever before. People think that if they turn their animal over to a shelter its going to go off to a happy little home and that simply is not true, even more so for cats. They also come to a shelter, get a dog and return the animal days later for a trivial infraction, that is normal behavior for a dog and could be fixed simply with training. That return to the shelter is an automatic death sentence for that dog as is any owner surrender! People need a SERIOUS reality check on what life in shelters is like, and understanding that when you get a dog you have to be responsible! Like having a child, it will need training and communication and of course love!
People have forgotten how to live with an animal who has been our partner since we existed on this planet. They don't see the horrible depression these rejected dogs and cats suffer after having the families they love abandon them. We have stopped teaching our children how to act around dogs, which in itself is responsible for many of the attacks on children and adults, since requiring people to hide their dogs behind high fences and four walls. We teach people what to do if they encounter a bear, and certainly don't collect them placing in shelters, but we have allowed unrealistic expectations for dogs and now cats to grow and grow with every generation, leading to horrible premature deaths of wonderful, gentle dogs. Groups like HSUS, ASPCA have allowed the media myths about certain breeds to become a fact, instead of fighting those myths with the millions raised on the backs of those animals. This I believe, contributes greatly to the abuse of breeds like Pit Bulls. I think people assume that its okay to abuse a dog, so wrongly unpopular in our present culture. That the abuse of this dog will be seen as justified or ignored.
Its time to hit people with the truth of their cruel actions and neglect. Stop taking away the life and rights of our domestic animals because people are uneducated about how to live side by side with them, as our ancestors have done for millions of years. We need governments to fund the laws they keep creating. These laws keep sending more and more animals to shelters and then they cut funding of those shelters creating a holocaust of deaths. Children and adults need to be taught how to act around and treat animals even if they don't own one. We need people to stop thinking of shelters as government funded pet shops where they can abandon their family member, and learn that when they purchase or adopt a pet, they are expected to be responsible for that animal no matter what! Most of all, we need severe laws for abusers of these animals, not slaps on the wrist. Every action we take as a society leads to a lesson learned by those members of our society! The policies created in the last 50 years toward our animals is creating intolerance and violence, that extends to anything or anyone deemed weaker by those allowed to get away with the cruelty, neglect and irresponsibility! Animals teach and give us a humanity that we can't get from a video game or the TV. We better reverse this wrong or beware the monsters we are creating!