What Just Happened

You know how a lot of Disney movies will start with something really peaceful and happy and then all of a sudden tragedy strikes?  Like The Lion King, Up, Bambi, Frozen, basically all of them.  Well Cynthia Kadohata's Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam is kinda like that.

Cracker! opens with Cracker (the dog) living a life of bliss with his human Will.  And, if you're anything like me, you will wonder, 'how do we get to Vietnam from here?'  Well cue Will's family moving to an apartment that doesn't allow pets and a heart wrenching, punch in the gut scene, where handlers come to take Cracker to military training while a sobbing Will looks on.

Once your emotions recover from that tear-jerking moment you will meet Rick, a generalist who knows he doesn't want to work in his family's hardware store but doesn't know what he does want to do so he ends up enlisting, after all there is a war going on (Vietnam).

Turns out, dogs were used in Vietnam to sniff out booby traps and hidden fighters.  You guessed it, Rick and Cracker are paired up and together they are shipped off to Vietnam or as Rick puts it, "to whip the world."

My favorite part about this book is that it flips from the human to the dog point of view.  Kadohata has perfectly captured what I think a dog would be thinking and feeling.  It was an absolute pleasure to read the sections from Cracker's point of view.  But make no mistake, this book is about a war.  So though it is an excellent book, if booby traps and military life aren't your thing then maybe this book isn't for you.

Becoming a team...that's kids stuff.