{"id":2209,"date":"2025-03-07T12:58:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T12:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=2209"},"modified":"2025-03-07T12:58:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T12:58:00","slug":"book-review-the-pug-who-didnt-belong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=2209","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Pug Who Didn\u2019t Belong"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Pug Who Didn\u2019t Belong<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

by Janina Kelly & Tommy Hardman<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong> Children\u2019s Picture Book<\/p>\n

ISBN: <\/strong>9783952619001<\/p>\n

Print Length:<\/strong> 32 pages<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Reviewed by Toni Woodruff<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>The sweetly rhyming story of one lovable pug and a madness of marmots<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Anybody who\u2019s ever seen a pug knows: that grumpy-looking ball of fur loves cuddles and belly rubs and getting spoiled. So when Paula, a comfortable pug with a cushy life in a palace, gets sent into the mountains, she\u2019s hoping for more of the same.<\/p>\n

But what she finds there isn\u2019t cushiness and cuddles; it\u2019s a grumpy-looking man and a bunch townspeople who don\u2019t think pugs belong up here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere were the comforts she\u2019d come to expect?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The absence of cuddles did not seem correct.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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She\u2019s lonely in this new place, but lucky for her, all she has to do is venture outside to find companionship and a kind-of yummy meal. \u201cLife is much brighter \/ when you\u2019re sharing a meal.\u201d <\/em><\/strong>A madness of marmots welcomes Paula with open arms, old cheese, and a rotting sandwich, and they help her feel at home in the woods. And surprisingly, they even play a funny role in breaking down the walls of that grumpy-looking human taking care of Paula.<\/p>\n

The Pug Who Didn\u2019t Belong <\/em>shines most in its poetry. As a parent, you\u2019ll read plenty of rhyming books out loud, and you\u2019ll tell quickly which ones disrupt your flow and which ones float off the tongue. This book\u2019s rhymes don\u2019t just float; they fly. From page one, we ride on rhythm and read about funny behavior in quick pages and with ease. You\u2019ll zip through the lines naturally and even smile while reading the current line about the previous one\u2019s execution. When the rhyme scheme does break, it\u2019s often because it\u2019s a turning point in the story. This is a poet\u2019s book for kids.<\/p>\n

The concept of sharing a meal is also one of my favorite themes in recent kids\u2019 book history. We can learn a lot about life by looking at animals. Food is a shared survival need in so many, even if it looks (or smells) different for some creatures. This book promotes food sharing in kids too, and it\u2019s a great way to build community. I\u2019d love it if my kid recommended we feed their next playmate thanks to this book.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not so much a story about a pug who doesn\u2019t belong as it is about a plucky little pug who finds companionship in an unlikely new place. The scene where the townspeople laugh at Paula is perhaps the only one I didn\u2019t love in the whole book. Paula is resilient and brave and sweet and just needs a little love from a madness of marmots. (Am I upset that I learned that a group of marmots is called a \u201cmadness\u201d from this kid\u2019s book? Not even a smidge!)<\/p>\n

Truly one of the best rhyming kids\u2019 books I\u2019ve read in a long time, The Pug Who Didn\u2019t Belong<\/em> would be an excellent choice for parents with pugs and kids who are ready to learn about making a home wherever they go.<\/p>\n

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Thank you for reading Toni Woodruff\u2019s book review of The Pug Who Didn\u2019t Belong <\/em>by Janina Kelly and Tommy Hardman! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.<\/p>\n

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The post Book Review: The Pug Who Didn\u2019t Belong<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pug Who Didn\u2019t Belong by Janina Kelly & Tommy Hardman Genre: Children\u2019s Picture Book ISBN: 9783952619001 Print Length: 32 pages Amazon Bookshop Reviewed by Toni Woodruff The sweetly rhyming story of one lovable pug and a madness of marmots Anybody who\u2019s ever seen a pug knows: that grumpy-looking ball of fur loves cuddles and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}