Captain Pug: The Dog Who Sailed the Seas, by Laura James

What is it with pugs at the moment?! Their popularity has soared, especially among children (I’m afraid to say my daughter was once caught suggesting that we swap one of our springer spaniels in for a pug!) After the demise of Ethel’s Willy on Eastenders the breed fell out of favour for a few years – but they’re back! So a book based on Pug, a lovable, chubby, jam-loving, water-fearing, spoiled pet doggy is perfectly timed for guaranteed success among the 6-11 age group !

Pug lives with Lady Miranda at No. 10 The Crescent … clearly not just ‘any old house’ as there’s also a Housekeeper and a pair of Footmen on the premises! Pug also has his own wardrobe full of outfits for most occasions and for the day in question – a birthday party on the boating lake – he was dressed in a sailor suit … ‘Captain Pug’. However, Pug had never seen the sea before, didn’t like water … in fact he walked around puddles, and he hated bath time. To avoid getting wet at the lake, Pug picked up the scent of a picnic, so went to investigate.

He loves jam tarts, and while searching the bottom of a picnic basket for some, he fell in and the lid closed above him. While in the basket, he decided to eat all the food, and didn’t realise that he had been carried away and was on a bus heading away from the party! What follows is an epic adventure, mainly on water in various craft, with Lady Miranda in hot pursuit for her beloved pet. I won’t give anymore away, as you need to read the book for yourself – but the adventure is quite full-on!

My children are aged 9 and 7 (well, nearly 10 and nearly 8). Toby (7) has struggled with his reading, but he was able to read the whole book, with occasional help for some of the longer words. He was really impressed with the lovely illustrations throughout, by Eglantine Ceulemans. For a young/new reader, it’s quite a long book, at 124 pages, but very few of the pages were ‘text heavy’ or daunting to a child reading it. It’s broken down into bite-sized chapters too – we read a chapter a day, as that felt ‘just right’ for my son. My 9 year old advanced reader finished it in under 10 minutes: she said the story was fun, and reiterated her need to have a pet pug!

Pug’s next adventure is published in January 2017. Called Cowboy Pug, this is another that will most definitely appeal to my son.