Look Back, Moss [Hardcover]

Betty Levin (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

Moss the border collie finds himself far from home and badly hurt after a disasterous ''rescue'' attempt by a well-meaning team of animal rights activists. But luckily for Moss, a young boy comes to his rescue and reunites him with his owner.'

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-7-Jody finds himself reluctantly involved in his mother's plots to rescue animals she feels are abused. These obsessive activities consume her, causing her to neglect her son. When her cause takes them to a sheepdog competition, Jody spends time observing a girl who is working with a Border collie named Moss. Later, when his mother cuts a fence to liberate the sheep, Moss is seriously injured. Jody's mother secretly takes the dog home to heal since she insists that the owners will kill him if he can't work, even though Jody knows that isn't true. As he cares for the animal, he becomes torn between loyalty to his mother and the desire to return the dog to his owners. Jody has limited options and for much of the story he seems rather helpless. He is reluctant to seek help from his father, who is not sympathetic to his ex-wife's views. Finally, seeing how important Moss has become to his son, he helps him return the dog. Levin's knowledge about sheepdogs provides a rich background of authentic detail. However, while the story takes an interesting approach to a current issue, the message dominates. It has a didactic tone with an all-too-obvious point decrying well-meaning but ill-informed people who take unreasonable actions in the name of a cause.
Adele Greenlee, Bethel College, St. Paul, MN
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 5^-8. The only child of divorced parents, junior-high student Jody is overweight, depressed, and irritated by his mother's involvement with an animal-rights group that steals animals believed to be abused or neglected and finds them new homes. When the group botches an attempt to rescue sheep from a rural New Hampshire sheep dog trial, a border collie, Moss, is badly wounded. Jody's mother finds the animal bleeding by the side of the road and takes it in, intending to find it a new, nonexploitative home. Jody, who has never cared about any of the other animals his mother has brought home, feels a special bond with Moss and works hard to rehabilitate it. He also becomes obsessed with idea of returning Moss to its rightful owner and to its life as a sheep dog. Jody's emotional growth parallels Moss' recovery, with both boy and dog slowly daring to trust, grow, and make decisions. The pace is slow, but the intriguing setting will attract animal lovers, as will the thoughtful depiction of both sides of the animal rights issue. Debbie Carton

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Greenwillow; 1st edition (August 20, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688156967
• ISBN-13: 978-0688156961
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,051,259 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, November 10, 2000

By 

Rosemary Amey (Toronto) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Look Back, Moss (Hardcover)

Betty Levin, who raises and trains sheepdogs, clearly had a specific agenda in mind when she wrote this book--to defend the use of sheepdogs, and smear animal rights activists. Her expertise on sheepdogs allows her to create a rich and complex character in Moss, the sheepdog of the title. However, the "animal rights" characters are poorly developed, inconsistent, and unbelieveable. Her contempt for animal rights activists is obvious: in this book, they are uniformly stupid, impulsive, hypocritical (most of them eat meat!), and unethical (compelling a child to engage in illegal activities). At one point, Levin suggests that Jody's mother was "brainwashed" by the other activists.

I have never heard of any animal rights activists being concerned about the plight of sheepdogs, but after reading this book, I wonder if maybe there is cause for concern. Why is Levin so hostile and defensive? Her unrealistic depiction of animal activists leads me to wonder if Moss's yearning to return to his work as a sheepdog is pure invention as well.