[CALIBK12] YA: Richie's Picks: THE DUST OF 100 DOGS

[BudNotBuddy at aol.com]

Richie's Picks: THE DUST OF 100 DOGS by A.S.  King, Flux, February 2009, 
320p., ISBN: 978-0-7387-1426-4
 
"We are passengers in time
Lost in motion, locked  together
Day and night, by trick of light
But I must take another  journey
We must meet with other names"
-- The Fixx
 
"Imagine my surprise when, after three centuries of fighting  with siblings 
over a spare furry teat and licking my water from a bowl, I was  given a huge 
human nipple, all to myself, filled with warm mother's  milk.  I say it was 
huge because Sadie Adams, my mother, has enormous  breasts (something I never 
inherited).
 
In 1664, while trying to escape to a new life together, the  wildly 
successful pirate Emer Morrisey and her first and only  love Seanie Carroll die 
violently hand in hand on a beach on  the island of Jamaica after burying two crates 
of priceless gems taken in  bloody sea attacks upon Spanish vessels.  During 
her final fight -- moments  before being killed on that beach by her nemesis 
The  Frenchman -- Emer is splashed with a dust and cursed through  incantation 
by The Frenchman's first mate, who dooms her to live 100 dog  lives.  Through 
those dog lives and into her 1972 human reincarnation  as Saffron Adams of 
Hollow Ford, Pennsylvania, she retains the memories of  her years as Emer and of 
each canine incarnation she has experienced since  being cursed.
 
Brilliantly melding adventure and well-researched historical  fiction with 
fantasy, romance, and contemporary YA, THE DUST OF 100 DOGS  moves seamlessly 
back and forth between the Seventeenth century life of  Emer and the Twentieth 
century life of Saffron, with periodic (and very amusing)  interludes for 
Saffron's experiential-based "Dog Facts."
  
Emer grows up in a small Irish valley, a bright  and aware child who is 
frustrated by the limitations placed upon  girls.  She becomes orphaned during 
Oliver Cromwell's  violent conquest of Ireland.  Betrayed by her abusive, turncoat 
uncle  and submissive aunt with whom she is then forced to live, she  is to 
be sold at fourteen into a marriage with a overweight,  middle-aged Parisian 
but runs away upon reaching the  Continent, escaping Paris upon a ship of whores 
bound for the  Caribbean.     
 
The stellar historical fiction segments that make  up Emer's story are evenly 
matched by the near-contemporary  portions of the book that comprise 
Saffron's tale:
 
"A puppy can walk and wander and whine from the minute they  leave the 
amniotic sac.  There is a freedom in that, which I learned to  appreciate during 
those first years as a human again.  Lying on my back for  hours in a crib, 
wearing a diaper, and drooling made me feel like an  idiot."
 
It is so much fun to watch Saffron growing up, equipped with  all the 
memories of Emer's mistreatment at the hands of Seventeenth century  male scoundrels 
and female enablers, as she verbally jousts  with her clueless, uneducated, 
and opportunistic Twentieth century  parents, and runs into such cultural sacred 
cows as the Senior  Prom.  Saffron also has a habit of daydreaming about the  
punishments she would choose to inflict upon those who cause her pain  and 
frustration -- and we fully expect from what we are  learning of Emer that 
Saffron well recalls inflicting each graphic  punishment back in her previous life.
 
 
"I didn't like Mrs. Zeiver, but now I had reason to like her  even less.  I 
pictured myself liberating her eyeball from its socket and  tossing it onto the 
merry-go-round in the first grade recess area."  

 
"We are matching spark and flame
Caught in endless  repetition
Life for life we'll be the same
I must leave before you burn  me
I'm the stranger who deserts you only to love you
In another life" 
 
Tell the truth.  What would YOU do if you were  born recalling how you'd 
buried several very-heavy crates of  precious jewels on a beach in Jamaica?  Would 
you be an adolescent  obsessed with who was going with whom or where you were 
going to attend  college?  Where would YOU plan on heading the  moment you 
became liberated from your parents, your felonious,  druggie brother, and the 
trailer park, at eighteen?  If you can  find the right spot, might the treasure 
actually still be buried there?   And, finally, who else might have gotten 
splashed with a dose of that curse  dust?
 
Richie  Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/) 
Moderator, _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/_ 
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/) 
BudNotBuddy at aol.com
_http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks_ (http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks) 


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