Remembering Vera
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
From beloved author Patricia Polacco comes the heartwarming and true story of Vera, an amazing dog who was found as a stray by the US Coast Guard, moved into the San Francisco Bay base, and became a hero and friend.
In 1962 a stray dog was found under a pile of boxes in a Coast Guard warehouse in what used to be called Government Island, the Coast Guard Base in San Francisco Bay, when a seaman named Dave Bunch was mopping the floor. It was love at first sight. At first the men decided to hide the pup from the Commander, thinking she wouldn’t be allowed. But soon enough all of the men in the barracks fell hard for the little dog. Then one day when high waves challenged another vessel at sea, it was Vera’s fierce determination and natural swimming ability that brought the life preserver and safety line to the sinking boat. Vera became a hero and the beloved pet and mascot of the San Francisco Coast Guard.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this moving and loosely autobiographical offering, Polacco (The Mermaid's Purse) recounts the story of Vera, an "ancient little yellow dog" she met in 1962 while visiting a relative stationed on a Coast Guard base near San Francisco. Polacco describes how the dog was found abandoned, adopted by Coast Guard cadets, and named Vera by a cadet named Davie Bunch. Vera "became a constant fixture in the barracks" and even took part in some intrepid rescues. Polacco's characteristically conversational prose and emotionally redolent art showcase Vera's heroic exploits, which included jumping off a cutter to deliver rope to people on a sinking sailboat and leaping into frigid waters to save passengers on a capsized ferry. Polacco herself enters the story in the poignant finale: she was volunteering at the SPCA in Oakland on the day in 1967 that a cadet brought the ailing Vera in to be put to sleep. It's difficult to say where the story diverts from real life (did Bunch actually exist, for example, or was he invented for this book?), though an afterword details the author's successful quest to locate Vera's grave marker. Ages 4 8.
