Sunday, July 5, 2026

Stella (Best Friends Dog Tales) (MG)

Stella is a working dog.  She has been trained to sniff out explosives with her beagle nose.  But she missed a smell one day, and there was a huge explosion that killed her handler, Connie, and left Stella with some PTSD/anxiety, and she was retired.  But finding a new home has been challenging.  Minutes after her third return to the shelter, they decided she wouldn’t ever find a home and decided to put her down.  Lucky for Stella, a lady shows up and knew Connie and takes Stella back to her farm to be retrained to do something else.  But once the lady's daughter, Chloe, sees Stella, she knows that Stella is the dog for her.  What they didn’t know, and Stella had to work hard to prove, was what her new job should be.

This is a heartwarming book about second chances.  The people need to give Stella a second chance, and Stella needs to come to terms with what happened and give herself a second chance.  The book is told from the perspective of Stella and how she desperately wants to be a good dog. Hearing things from Stella’s perspective is so awesome, like the time she first sniffs Chloe.  I really liked this book, and it would be good for anyone who loves to learn about working dogs, and just a really good story.  The book has some action and suspense and will be good for any middle-grade reader, even reluctant ones.  PS: Stella does not die in this book.