Red Dog (Book Review 6)
By: Bill
Wallace
“Red Dog” is
a somewhat strange book that, I believe, takes place around the gold rush. It’s
a good book, but it took me a chapter or two before I actually started to enjoy
it. However, this book was a bit hard to understand, and follow along, but it
didn’t take long before I got the hang of it. This book is about justice,
forgiveness, and acceptance.
The book
starts off with Adam, a twelve year old boy, in the woods hunting with his red pup. There isn’t much around until
the pup starts yapping and running after something. Almost instantly, Adam runs
after him, trying his best to catch up. Adam then finds the pup barking up a
tree. Adam looks up at the tree and sees nothing, but upon further
investigation he sees a mountain lion. He then grabbed his pup and ran for
home. When he got home he told his mother about the mountain lion.
His mother,
mad at Adam, scolds him for coming home late. Adam then gets into an argument
with his mother about his new step-father. Adam then runs back into the woods
crying. Then, Sam, Adam’s Step-father, comes out to talk to Adam. However, Adam
didn’t want to talk to him, so he made a deal with Sam instead. They would race
down the mountain to a wooden bridge. If Adam won, Sam had to tell his mother
they talked, and Sam would have to do one of Adam’s chores. If Sam won, he
would get to name one of his chores that Adam would have to complete.
So, they
raced, but Sam knows his way around the mountain, so Adam’s attempt at
“redemption” failed. Sam told Adam what his chore was, and they headed back to
the house that night. The next day, Sam left to check his traps, while Adam,
and Laurie, Adam’s sister, were checking closer traps. Then, all of a sudden
there were three men trying to sneak around the cabin. However, Adam’s mother
saw this, so she pointed a rifle out a window at the men, and commanded them to
stop and state their business. They didn’t say anything, so Adam’s mother told
them to leave, and they did.
Later that
day, in their cabin, a red skinned man busted through their cabin door and
pointed a flintlock pistol right at Adam’s mother. Adam, knowing what was
right, grabbed the man and told his sister, and mother to run. However, looking
past the man stood Sam. Everyone stopped, and Sam told them that the Indian was
his friend, and that he wanted to see how Adam would react to that type of
situation. He goes on to tell them that he will be leaving for a week, fairly
soon.
A couple
days later, Sam leaves and Adam is checking traps, like it should be, but
things don’t go well after Adam gets back the cabin. When he got back, three
men came in right after Adam, and held both him and his family at gunpoint.
There were three, and they were all looking for gold. However, Adam
“mysteriously” escapes and tries to plan out how he could save his family. But,
he’s only got a limited time, because one of the gold miners is using his red
pup to track him down. It will be tough and Adam may need some help on his mission,
but it will be worth it in the end.
I thought
this book was a bit strange in some places, and didn’t really fit in well near
the end, but all-in-all it was an okay book. It was a bit difficult to
understand, or even get into, but I think a lot of different people, or groups,
would enjoy reading it.
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