Review
Title: Stella
Author: McCall Hoyle
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Genre: Middle-Grade Fiction
Year Published: 2021
Number of Pages: 165
Binding: Hard Cover
ISBN-13: 978-1-62972-901-5
Price: $16.99
Reviewed by Sherry Ann Miller for the Association for Mormon Letters
The inside front jacket on the book, Stella, reads:
Ever since she was a puppy, Stella was trying to use her powerful beagle nose to sniff out dangerous chemicals and help her handler keep people safe. But during a routine security inspection, Stella misses the scent of an explosive. The sound of the blast is loud and scary. Unable to go back to work because of her anxiety, Stella is retired as a working dog.
When a young girl named Cloe wants to adopt Stella, the beagle knows this is her last chance to prove her worth. But how? When Stella smells a strange chemical inside Cloe‘s body, a scent that surges just before the girl has a seizure, Stella’s nose makes the connection. But how can Stella warn her new family without them thinking she’s having an anxiety attack? How can she convince others that she can be a new kind of service dog and hopefully save Cloe‘s life?
Stella is a delightful read, one that is perfectly appropriate for children in fourth grade and older. Even adults might enjoy its fast pace and endearing journey through the mind of a Beagle. It does deal with some mature subjects (bombs, death, and epilepsy) so, I would not recommend it for children under age ten.
Told from a dog’s point of view, the author, McCall Hoyle, somehow managed to convince me that Stella wrote her own book and titled it Stella, after her own name. She might just as well have titled it The Autobiography of Stella the Beagle, for it reads, truly, as though Stella did all the writing herself, an amazing feat.
I was sucked into Stella with the first sentence, “My nose wakes up before the rest of me,” and I could not put the book down until I had wrung out of it the very last word—hope. What lies between is a tale of terror turned into fear and anxiety turned into patience. These are wrapped up together with purpose, courage, and love.
Stella is an amazing tale of how one lovable Beagle learns to deal with her anxiety and terror after her human is killed in a bombing at the airport, a bombing that Stella blames on herself, a bombing which, Stella feels, makes her a bad dog. Sweet Stella is passed around like an unwanted foster dog after the bombing until her former human’s kind friend, Esperanza, decides to bring her home, rescuing Stella from being put out of her misery at the Pound.
Given a newfound lease on life, Stella strives her very best to become a good dog. No longer wanting the bad dog label, Stella finds courage in protecting and befriending Esperanza’s daughter, a girl named Cloe, who has epilepsy; a girl Stella hopes will become her new human. But in order to do that, Stella must face her fears. She must cast off her anxiety. First, Stella must rescue Cloe from two naughty boys who accidentally start a fire in the woods near Cloe’s home, while Cloe lies unconscious following another epileptic seizure deep within the forest of burning trees.
McCall Hoyle taught me a few things I didn’t even know about dogs, such as some female dogs absolutely do mark their territory, much like male dogs. And, a bad experience can drive a dog into an insane anxiety, something I had suspected but did not understand until reading Stella.
I wondered if I would like reading a book from a dog’s point of view, but Stella kept my interest and entertained me. Once you read Stella I’m sure you’ll agree.