Strongheart: Wonder Dog of the Silver Screen
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
For fans of Balto and other real-life dog stories, here's a heavily illustrated middle-grade novel about a canine movie star of the 1920s, dramatically told in both words and pictures by an acclaimed author and a Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator.
When movie director Larry Trimble travels to Berlin searching for his next big star--a dog!--he finds Etzel, a fierce, highly trained three-year-old German shepherd police dog. Larry sees past the snarls and growls and brings Etzel back to Hollywood, where he is renamed Strongheart. Along with screenwriter Jane Murfin, Larry grooms his protégé to be a star of the silver screen--and he succeeds, starting with Strongheart's first film, The Love Master, which is released in 1921. Strongheart is soon joined by a leading lady, a German shepherd named Lady Julie, and becomes a sensation.
Touching, charming, playful, and based on real events, this moving tale by Candace Fleming and illustrated by Eric Rohmann tells all about "the wonder dog" who took America by storm.
A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF 2018
A CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF 2018
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Based on a true story, this absorbing novel from the duo behind Giant Squid and other books introduces Strongheart, a German shepherd that worked as a police dog in Germany until his discovery by Hollywood director Larry Trimble in the early 1920s. Trimble had long been searching for a "smart, expressive, dramatic dog" to star in a silent film; after traveling all the way to Europe to find the right dog, he knew that Strongheart fit the bill. Rohmann's arresting oil paintings (like Strongheart's movies, they're in black and white) are a vibrant part of the storytelling, illuminating Strongheart's expressiveness and intelligence; in one sequence, Rohmann brings readers into a darkened theater to witness Strongheart's on-screen heroics in his first film, The Last Call, which became a box-office hit and catapulted the dog to superstardom. The collaborators also spotlight a softer side of Strongheart as he befriends orphaned boys and starts a family with his canine leading lady. An excellent afterword delves into greater detail about Strongheart's life, including the fact that only one of his films survived. Ages 8 12.
