About This Book

View the Video Read-Aloud with Ann M. Martin.

Book Sense Book of the Year Award, 2006, Honor Book Children's Literature

Best Children's Book of the Year, 2005 Bank Street College of Education

Children's Book Sense Picks, Winter 2005-2006; Independent Booksellers Association

Squirrel and her brother Bone begin their lives in a tool shed behind someone's summer house. Their mother nurtures them and teaches them the many skills they will need to survive as stray dogs. But when their mother is taken from them suddenly and too soon, the puppies are forced to make their own way in the world, facing humans both gentle and brutal, busy highways, other animals, and the changing seasons.

When Bone and Squirrel become separated, Squirrel must fend for herself, and in the process, makes two friends who in very different ways define her fate.

Praise for  A Dog's Life: An Autobiography of a Stray

"Ann Martin's language is beautifully descriptive." — Library Media Connection

"Heart-wrenching as well as heart-warming." — Kirkus

"Readers who love animal survival stories in the tradition of Anna Sewell's Black Beauty and Sheila Brunford's The Incredible Journey will embrace this for its convincing animal perspective." — Booklist

About the Authors or Illustrators

Ann M. Martin

The author of best-selling tween-pleasing Babysitter Club books, this Award-winning author also wrote the Main Street series, A Dog's Life, the historical novels Belle Teal and Here Today, and the Newbery Honor book A Corner of the Universe. Working with others authors, Ann co-wrote P.S. Longer Letter Later and Snail Mail No More, with Paula Danziger, and The Doll People, with Laura Godwin.

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