Strongheart: Wonder Dog of the Silver Screen

Larry Trimble is a film director in the days of silent films. He wants to find a great dog to star in a movie his partner, Jane Murfin, is writing. He ends up taking his search to Europe and there finds a German Shepherd that has been trained as a police dog, but Trimble sees something in him. He takes him to California, renames him Strongheart, and goes about retraining him. Strongheart, it seems, has the heart of a lion and the talent to win the hearts of audiences. But not everything goes smoothly for this dog or his new master, and evil, greedy people try to undo everything Larry, Jane, and Strongheart have worked for.

Author Candace Fleming has found an interesting set of characters and quite a story as a basis for this work of creative non-fiction that will find lots of dog-loving youngsters eager to read it. Charming pencil illustrations by Eric Rohmann populate this book generously and help to tell the story and will keep young eyes on the pages. This will be particularly popular for the eight- to ten-year-old crowd as they move from picture books and chapter books to novels.