Before You Were Mine
This article originally appeared in SLJ’s Extra Helping. Sign up now!
Teresa Bateman, Brigadoon Elementary School, Federal Way, WA -- School Library Journal, 6/26/2008
Before You Were Mine. video or DVD. 7 min. with tchr’s. guide. Spoken Arts (spokenartsmedia.com). 2008. video, ISBN 0-8045-9725-1: $49.95; DVD, ISBN 0-8045-8070-7: $50; cassette with hardcover book, ISBN 0-8045-6961-4: $27.95; CD with hardcover book, ISBN 0-8045-4184-1: $29.95.
PreS-Gr 3–In simple, yet heart-touching text, a young boy asks his new puppy what its life was like before being adopted by the child. Did he belong to a nice family who had to give him up? Did he run away? Was he abandoned? Did he live on the streets, trying to find food and shelter? The boy explains that he lost his former dog to old age and thought that he would never have another pet to love. His family visited an animal shelter and now the puppy has a home, and the boy has a friend. As Pamela Arkin reads the gentle text written by Maribeth Boelts (Putnam, 2007), David Walker’s soft-edged, warm illustrations are scanned iconographically with some minor animation added. The program ends with a visit to an actual animal shelter, and viewers are urged to adopt an animal and give it a “forever family.” This sweet, gentle story will touch youngsters.
