Pup at the Palace

Animal Ark: Summer Special #4

by Ben M. Baglio, Ann Baum (Illustrator), Jennie Walters (Ghostwriter)

This newest Animal Ark title will provide cozy reading for animal lovers everywhere. With sales of over 6 million books worldwide, the Animal Ark franchise is a hit with young readers.

Mandy and James are taking a trip to London during summer vacation. On a visit to Buckingham Palace, Mandy spots an adorable Labrador puppy, who poses for James's camera and then runs away. Mandy and James spot the puppy all over town, but catching him turns out to be harder than they expected.

Can Mandy rescue this lost puppy from the dangers of the big city?

Genres: Animals, Childrens, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Middle Grade, Dogs, Contemporary

144 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2003

About the author

Ben M. Baglio created the brief for two series of children's books - Dolphin Diaries and Animal Ark. Dolphin Diaries features a girl and her family from Florida, who travel around the world as marine biologists and study dolphins. Animal Ark features two children who work together to help animals and solve animal-related mysteries. The books were written by commissioned writers in the UK under Baglio's instruction using the pseudonym Lucy Daniels. Each ghostwriter is named with a 'Special Thanks' on the copyright page.

Using his real name he also wrote the book series The Pet Finders Club, featuring a group of three children who search for peoples lost pets.

Reviews

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a review of the 2000 UK Hodder edition. In America, this would published by Scholastic. For some reason, Scholastic did not print dozens of the Animal Ark books -- but chose to print this one. It's a very British book, and Scholastic tended to pass on books like that. Go figure.

The real author is Jennie Walters. If you ever want to know who really wrote any book in the Animal Ark Universe, just check out the copyright or dedication page. Whoever is given "special thanks" is the real author.

The illustrator is Anne Baum, who I preferred over the original illustrator, Shelagh McNichols. Baum is much better at drawing animals, particularly dogs. Perhaps the best drawing of Pandora the Peke appears in this book.

This is one of my favorite books in the series. I'm a sucker for a good dog story, and it was fun to read about London in the year 2000. That was the year I ran away from Pennsylvania to England ... but that's another story. The practical upshot is that I probably gave this book an extra star for the nostalgia.

But this book does not take itself too seriously. In fact, it pokes a little fun at the whole Animal Ark Universe when a children's book author appears. The author specializes in doing two series of books featuring animals. Nice nod and a wink there.

If this is the very first Animal Ark book you've picked up, put it back down, because you do need to read many of the previous books to get the back stories on the featured folks of Welford. Usually, when Mandy and her parents go on vacation, they only take James along. This time, they cart along half of Welford in a coach (bus) trip to London.

A nice element was that Mandy and/or James asked their fellow travelers who owned pets about who was taking care of their pets while they were away. This was a subtle way of reminding readers that you should never take a vacation if it means neglecting your pet. One of the most common reasons people abandon or surrender their pets to shelters is that they want to go on vacation and can't find a pet sitter (or so they claim, anyway.)

Oh, one more thing -- if you want to see the Millennium Dome described here, tough luck. The futuristic theme park housed in the Dome lasted just one year only, 2000. That anchors this book firmly in the year 2000. And everyone is just the same age as they were in the first book, published six years before. Why it was decided to make Animal Ark a time static series, I've no idea.

[Lianna Kendig · Rating 3 out of 5]

(LL)
Any series will try something different after a while, but sometimes it doesn’t work. I’m not a fan of children’s literature that goes on a field trip, or travels somewhere with lots of tourism, as it’s always about the places they are going opposed to telling a good story. The books aren’t long enough to get a great story out of 130ish pages when 30 of them are simply talking about the trip to the destination, and the characters doing tourist things. It wasn’t a great plot, but the subplot with Sinbad (bird) was kind of fun and informative on the topic of birds.

[Callen DeWit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wholesome

[Madie Berndt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good animal ark book. Good for children and animal lovers. Not advanced.

[Angelina Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

6yo says “It’s so exciting! It’s all about dogs, and I love dogs.”

[Lydia Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like it, but there are other Animal Arks that I like better. Warning, *SPOILERS*

In this book, Mandy and James go on a vacation to London with Mandy's parents and grandma and a few other people from their town. While they're there, Mandy and James spot a little puppy without a collar who's hungry. James manages to get a picture of it, but they're unable to catch it. So all thru their week long vacation, they're worrying about the puppy. What if it gets hit in the busy streets? Who owns it? Why would they abandon it? Mandy and James meet up with a girl from New York and all three of them are obsessed with finding the puppy. Until the girl, Casey, gets hurt. Mandy's parents tell her to enjoy the vacation and not worry about the puppy, but Mandy doesn't listen. But it turns out good in the end and everyone ends up happy!

I enjoy reading this series and even though the books are small, they're fun to read!

[Twyla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mandy and James were going on vacation to London with Mandy's Grandma and other people in Welford.They found a chocolate Labrador at Buckingham Palace.She was hard to catch.The easiest one to catch was the one a fountain.Auryn8yo

[Rjgolden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mandy and James see a cute Labrador puppy at the palace and then sees it all over town. The two try to save the puppy from the dangers of the city! A fun chapter book for students starting to develop essential reading skills and want to try reading a chapter book.

[Rachel (Sfogs) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cute! What a mission! Trying to catch all the pups!

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book.

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

While visiting Buckingham Palace, Mandy and James spot a labrador puppy.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think that these books are good. It's a dog that Mandy and James find at the bucking ham palace. It is well written.

[Zoey]

this book is good i read it in school its short and th epuppy is so cute

[Meagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

funny/cute book

[Prashansa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice!

[Kyla Wilde]

This book is about Mandy and James and they take a trip to Bucking ham. They keep trying to catch a chocolate lab puppy because it is dangerous for the puppy to be out on the streets. The character that I like the most is Mandy because she loves animals and wantqs to help all animals in need. Can Mandy and James help the puppy or will it just keep running away from them. Find out by reading this book.