All James Herriot Great and Small

In the fourth grade, my friends and I would set up a makeshift vet's office during recess complete with an index card box with our patient's names and afflictions, a couple of stuffed animals, our pencils doubling as syringes and thermometers and a clipboard to hold our charts. I wanted to be a veterinarian and my parents demonstrated their support of my dream by giving me a copy of James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small. Over the next few years I attempted to read this work but could never get past the first 50 pages. I still don't know why and spending the last week immersed in his Cat Stories and Dog Stories has not helped to shed any light because I absolutely loved these two collections. Cat Stories is a bit shorter than Dog Stories (which is filled with 50 canine tales) and both are illustrated (Cat Stories with wonderful watercolors by Leslie Holmes). I know so little about cats that reading Herriot's stories along with Miss Read's Tiggy felt like receiving a crash course in feline nature where as growing up around dogs I felt an instant affinity towards the characters in Dog Stories. I read a couple of the dog stories to my oldest and she begged me to stop because they made her sad. There is that aspect to both of the books...the loss of a pet and Herriot telling of sicknesses that he could not cure...but what mostly comes through is the great importance our pets have in our lives and how they become one of the family. I just can't recommend these two books highly enough and because most of the stories are taken from his classic series chronicling the life of a veterinary surgeon I will be giving All Creatures Great and Small another try.

On an aside, I am posting more sporadically as this new year progresses and this will continue to be as we are welcoming some new changes on the homefront. There are just never enough hours in the day it seems and while I want to keep up on reading my favorite book blogs, I will be moving towards a once monthly post reviewing books I have read and progress made in challenges. I will continue to participate in events like the 24 hour read-a-thon and Persephone reading week, and of course, the You've Got Mail challenge is still on. So don't be alarmed if it is more quiet at Book Psmith than it already is:)