“Sheep”, by Valerie Hobbs

Hobbs, Valerie. Sheep. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. Print.

I expected to love this book; after all, my parents have an adored border collie, and it’s a children’s book recommended through LibraryThing.  It fell a bit flat, though.  I read it out loud with an 11-year-old at bedtimes, and it was a good length for that.  Halfway through we could both see the ending coming, though, and that kind of ruined my enjoyment.

The descriptions of adoption at an orphanage; the kids and parents lined up and shaking hands, and the prospective parents driving off with the kid they picked – made me hope that the book was set in the past, but since there was no particular evidence of it other than that, I was a bit dismayed at that portrayal.