Red Dog (Book Review 6)

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.