The Incredible Journey

Three pets, two dogs and a cat, head for home across the Canadian wilderness. Wow. Fabulous adventure story. Attacked by bears. Almost drowned in a river. Nearly starving. Shot at. Taken in for the night by a zany loner. Befriended by some empty-nesters. Walking through snow. Fantastic story! Quite deserving of the title.

This one is a really hard one to review for me. I think I remember reading it as a child, but I don't remember much of what went on. I don't think I saw the movie, but I have a vague recollection of the general plot. So did I actually read it or did I just ingest societal knowledge of the story by osmosis?

Either way, I chose it as a book to read to my seven year old daughter at bedtime. The chapters are a reasonable size except for one long one near the end. The story is fine, except that the mention of guns in the beginning kind of freaked her out, and it was nothing more than a man getting a shotgun out and looking at it.

She did enjoy the adventures of the animals and became really concerned for them. Eventually she did lose interest and got distracted by Tea Dragon books and didn't want to go back and finish this one.

We struggle to find books that work for her because she has a very advanced vocabulary and reading level, but a very low tolerance for scary and frightful situations. This book worked well for that, because although it is presumably written for children, it is written in a very literary manner.

“It is a country of far-flung, lonely farms and a few widely scattered small towns and villages, of lonely trappers' shacks and logging camps. Most of its industry comes from the great pulp and paper companies who work their timber concessions deep in the very heart of the forests; and from the mines, for it is rich in minerals. Prospectors work through it; there are trappers and Indians; and sometimes hunters who fly into the virgin lakes in small amphibious aircraft; there are pioneers with visions beyond their own life span; and there are those who have left the bustle of civilization forever, to sink their identity in an unquestioning acceptance of the wilderness.”

That is certainly not “See Dick run.” or “I do not like green eggs and ham.”

It gave us an opportunity to talk about the word Indians and how, as a Canadian book, it might in these days use the term First Nations, or here in the United States use the term Native American.

I was left to finish it on my own, and it is a quick read. It felt a little anti-climactic, perhaps suffering from the conflict between writing a literary story and one that did not want to lose the attention of children.

I'm glad we read it, and look forward to finishing our date with Tea Dragons so we can move on to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.