Sled Dog School

• Sled Dog School by Terry Lynn Johnson on Amazon

Set in Copper Creek, Michigan that I couldn't find on a map (though I found many retailers and other entities with Copper Creek in their name), Sled Dog School engages anyone who loves animals, kids, adventure, and a touch of how will this resolve (or will it?) in a story that includes Matt, his younger sister Lily, a math class assignment, and a heartening outcome. At least in the past, Michigan was major Copper Country, and it feels as if Copper Creek may be in the northern part of the state, possibly in the Upper Peninsula. We get sled dogs teams in a rural residential area, parents raising free range kids, a family living off the grid. An outhouse, no electric, no central heating, and enough snow for dog teams? Yes!

Basics are about Matt's school assignment to start and keep books for his own business that per the book title, is a Sled Dog School. You'll need to read for yourself how Matt and his parents, Matt and his classmates, Matt and his teachers make their ways through the narrative, but I can assure you the plot fascinated me and Terry Lynn Johnson brought everything to life as a reader would expect from an experienced author.

I chose Sled Dog School the book… because I've been loving middle school novels, and especially because Northern Dogs / Siberian Huskies / Sled Dogs intrigue me. My southern Arizona friend Carla introduced me to those fabulous dogs; she learned about and became smitten with then when she lived and worked in Alaska, later on owned several of her own northern dogs, and even later than that, ran a northern dog rescue and adoption agency. Tamara, a Facebook friend I first met on Best Friends Animal Society's now defunct forums, lives in Yukon Territory and until recently had teams of huskies; I could not get enough of the frequent photographs and occasional videos of her teams in harness running across the snow!

• My Amazon Review: a boy, his dog, his friends