I am Ava, Seeker in the Snow Book Review

Ava, Seeker in the Snow (A Dog's Day #2)

Written by Catherine Stier

Illustrated by Francesca Rosa
Published byAlbert Whitman and Co., April 2020

Review

I am Ava, Seeker in the Snow is the second book in the Dog's Day series (we also reviewed I am Jax, Protector of the Ranch). Ava is an avalanche rescue dog; readers accompany her as she comforts a child with a broken ankle, demonstrates a search and rescue operation during a safety workshop, and ultimately saves a buried snowshoer. Like I am Jax, the dog narrates while maintaining a canine mindset; she comments how her brain tells her "FindScentFindScentFindScent," for example. T and I both enjoyed the narrative – it was exciting without becoming too tense for T – and learned about another working dog. T goes to school on a farm, and he's read about service animals, so seeing other ways that animals work with humans is interesting for us both. 

The content of I am Ava, Seeker in the Snow is interesting and the language on level, with a comfortable ratio of text to illustration. The series is an ideal balance of challenge and comfort for T right now. We are sharing the reading of a few chapters pretty much each day at this point, and T is reading more of each of those chapters than he was a week ago. He's excited to move up to longer books like Magic Treehouse and Goosebumps soon!

Note: A review copy was provided for an honest review.