Stella

McCall Hoyle

2021 • 176 pages

Ratings3

Average rating4

An uplifting and poignant story about a former service beagle named Stella who must find the courage to overcome her fears and use her special nose to save a girl's life. Ever since Stella was a puppy, she was trained to use her powerful beagle nose to sniff out chemicals used in explosives and warn her human handler in order to keep people safe. But during a routine security inspection, Stella is distracted and misses the scent of an explosive chemical. The sound of the blast is loud and scary. Stella survives but her handler--her best friend in the whole world--is gone. Stella blames herself, certain she's a bad dog. Scared of loud noises, especially thunder and fireworks, Stella struggles with her anxiety and must be retired from being a service animal. Several families try to foster her, but sometimes Stella is so scared she howls or digs or tears things up with her teeth. She wonders if anyone will want to adopt her. An expert dog trainer, Esperanza, thinks she can help. It's Stella's last chance to prove she can be a good dog. Stella has every reason to love her new family, especially the young human named Chloe who smells like chocolate chip cookies, newly cut grass, the pages of books, and something else--a strange chemical she can't quite identify. Chloe has epilepsy, and a chemical inside her body surges just before she has a seizure. Stella's nose makes the connection. But how can she warn Esperanza without her thinking it's just Stella's usual anxiety? How can she convince her new family that she can be a new kind of service dog and hopefully save Chloe's life? Told from Stella's point of view, readers will experience life through a dog's eyes, ears, and, especially, her nose. Like Babe the pig or Ivan the gorilla, Stella the beagle is an extraordinary story for kids who love animals. An endearing novel of courage, compassion, friendship, and love.

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Featured Series

2 primary books3 released books

Best Friends Dog Tales

Best Friends Dog Tales is a 3-book series with 3 released primary works first released in 2021 with contributions by McCall Hoyle.

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ETA: Apparently this is the book which was switched into the Nominee list instead of The List of Things That Will Not Change. I was made to read this book because of homophobia!

1.5/5 stars

This is a Golden Sower Chapter Book Nominee for 2022-23, which is why I picked it up as I'm not typically into books with animal narrators. Read attentively up to 65%, skimmed the rest; I would have left it without a star rating, but I grew impatient with the handling of language in this book and would like to leave a note about that in particular. I know this book is not really for me.

Stella is narrated in first-person present-tense from the perspective of a dog. Stella doesn't understand human language aside from certain phrases, like her name, commands, and foods. She mostly makes sense of what humans and other animals are saying through body language, smells, tone of voice, etc. But human dialogue is rendered in plain English - not, for example, italicized, or left indirect - so a reader will frequently have situations where they 1) read and understand what a human character is saying, 2) have it reinforced in the prose with Stella's reading of sight and sounds, and then 3) have Stella misunderstand the situation and react at odds. There is dramatic irony and then there is cognitive disconnect. Basic communication problems as a plot device are for sure a pet peeve of mine, but I really wonder at the editor's choice here, especially since Stella frequently talks about how human communication is weird to her, and she wishes she could understand them or speak with them, and there's even a moment where she tried. To top it off near the end of the book Spoilerher old trainer, Connie, appears in a metaphysical haze and speaks to Stella which not only broke my immersion but exasperated my major complaint to another degree.