Daddles: The Story of a Plain Hound-dog

by Ruth Sawyer, Robert Frankenberg (Illustrator)

Genres: Dogs, Fiction, Childrens

100 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Ruth Sawyer was an American storyteller and a writer of fiction and non-fiction for children and adults. She may be best known as the author of Roller Skates, which won the 1937 Newbery Medal.

Reviews

[Luisa Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Children are inherently drawn to animals; particularly dogs, and Sawyer does a beautiful job of capturing that desire and longing.

When a brother and sister arrive in a quaint little village for the summer, they come across a dog that needs their help. But Daddles will return the favor with more love then they imagine.

Note: might want tissues handy for the weepers and animal lovers in your family.

Ages: 8+

Cleanliness: "goldurn" is said. There are a couple times where the children don't obey their mother.

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[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Received book from a "tutor" I had in the fourth grade. I was in a car accident and missed 3/4's of the year. I loved this book - it was only the second book I ever read.

[Stephen Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Daddles was written in 1964 and has a nice ol’ timey feel to it. It has a feeling like of a grandma telling a story from her youth. I enjoyed the book but nothing too big happens in it and I didn’t like the way it ended so would put it down a fair amount in the list of books I would recommend. But it did have some nice bits that I will share with you. The illustrations are right nice as well, only wish I could share them too, but guess you will have to get your hands on the book to see them.

The book’s main characters are a boy (11) and a girl (8) who every year for the summer go to Haddock Harbor in Maine. The start of the book has this:

'It is a funny thing about families and dogs – either they belong to each other or they don’t. If you asked Peterkin and me – and Daddles – we would all have said we belonged to each other. But if you asked the Monroes – the meanest, dirtiest and most shiftless family in Haddock Harbor – they would have said he was their hound-dog.'

This is the part where they ask Mr. Monroe about the dog when they had to go get some eggs from them:

While we waited for the eggs Peterkin asked, trying to sound casual, “This your hound-dog? What’s his name?”
Bill Monroe looked at us and the dog as mean as a man can look. “He’s ourn all right. Bein’ a plain hound-dog he hain’t got a name.”

When the girl and the boy come to town they can spend their time with the dog, and when they return to Boston, the dog is the Monroe's to use to hunt rabbits. The times they do have with the dog are enjoyable.

I grew up a city boy in Phoenix, then moved to Southern California in suburbs of Los Angeles, so forays into the wilderness like to go fishing were few and far between. Now that I have moved to North Carolina, and also recently visited Tennessee, I can even more appreciate the beauty of being outdoors. So outside of the innocent fun of children and a dog, I really enjoyed bits in the book that talked of the beauty of being out doors:

'It was pretty fishing. The brook was edged with fern and birch and sassafras and shadbush. The rocks had different kinds of moss. There were lots of birds, warblers, nuthatches and thrushes. Ever catch a speckled beauty of a trout while a hermit thrush sang? Well-it’s something you always remember.'

'Did you ever get up at crack of dawn – get your own breakfast and row out a good nautical mile into Penobscot Bay to watch the sun come up while you wait for a school of mackerel to swim near enough to be caught? It is a time full of wonder.'

'It wasn’t just catching mackerel that made those dawns red-letter days for us. It was like watching the world being created anew to watch the sun come up -the orange streak changing to flames -orange, yellow, crimson; to watch the whole bay catch the glory of it – to watch the western sky take fire. People who don’t ever watch sunrises miss a lot of wonder.'

I didn’t like the way the book ends, as Kleenex is needed and kind of senseless, but it does say, “And if one had a sorrow, Maine was the best place to be.”

[Aleta · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not that I disliked this book, I just didn't feel it. It was very meh.

Pros were Daddles. Daddles was adorable. I also enjoyed the descriptions of summer, and the outdoors.

Cons: It follows the formulas of almost all dog books. Kid finds dog. Dog and kid bond. Kid takes Dog in. Hijinks ensue, but the dog proves itself to be absolutely lovable, and probably saves the day once or twice. And then SPOILERS!!! The dog tragically dies.
But the problem was the death didn't feel emotional. The children weren't there for the death, all they got was a brief description of what happened, then they visited his grave.
It just didn't deliver on the emotion, and normally I am DESTROYED by animal deaths.

It was a sweet book, but it failed to stand out, or be as equally/more special as other children books.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first “big book” I read back in the 70s. Loved it!