Hearne, B. The Canine Connection: Stories About dogs and People. New York, NY: Margaret C. McElderry Books.

Brief Annotation: This collection of short stories tells of the relationships that children and teenagers have with their dogs. Each story is a quick glimpse into the life of the teen, the dogs are a constant prescence in the stories, but of course the stories are really about the people.
Genre: contemporary realistic fiction/realistic animal fiction
Grade level: 5-10
Readers who will like this: Readers who like stories about animals. Readers who enjoy the short story format. Students that are interested in becoming writers—the writing is very good and pretty mature.
Response/rating: I really enjoyed this book. The stories reminded me so much of my 15 year old brother, who is very reluctatnt to read anything that isn’t assigned for school. I think it would a book for students like him.
One question you would ask before read aloud: “What do you think the author means by ‘canine connection’? So you have a canine connection?”
Reading strategies connection: I would use this book as an opportunity to introduce a Clusters (Tompkins 21) writing strategy. Students would use these mind map graphic organizers to generate ideas for a short story they will write about an animal in their life. The cluster approach allows students to think non-linearly about one topic. This allows them to develop a number of ideas at once and to see connections between ideas. After using the clusters, students will continue focusing their ideas down to one topic for their short story.