By Josephine Park

Cover Blurb:

An adorable (sometimes naughty) 28" tall miniature horse named Alvin is adopted by a family. He learns to adapt to his new home while making lifelong friends. Alvin must overcome change and rejection while learning to love his new family even if he is different from the other animals. From growing up with his birth mother to being adopted by his new family, Alvin learns who he is and who he will become. Alvin feels rejected when he learns that he will have to leave the life he knows. Scared but excited, Alvin embarks on this new journey with his adopted family. He understands how to adapt when he makes friends with Schmalls, his stall mate. He also gains two sisters, Allie, a Dalmatian, and Preslee, a Tri-colored Welsh Corgi. Alvin has new adventures on the farm, from taking walks down the country road to taking baths. He learns to enjoy each experience. Alvin loves to explore and spend time with his family. He knows that he is different from his family but learns to adjust and communicate through these differences. Alvin realizes that his family loves him and that he loves his new family. This book is the first in a series of Adventures of Alvin.

Adventures of Alvin: Adoption Day By Author Brenda Dinges – Book Review

Fiction based on reality with a dollop of education mixed in, Adoption Day will allow readers to explore what life is like for a horse on a ranch.

Alvin is our fun-loving, happy-go-lucky protagonist in this story, which details what happens when a horse is weaned from its mother and sent to its new home. What’s more, Alvin is a real horse and resides on the ranch with the author along with several of the other characters in the book; it’s nice to imagine them all living happily and the creative way that the author has captured their real-life personalities makes for good reading. 

Beautiful, whimsical illustrations create vivid images that transports the reader to the animals’ home: they’re certainly a strong point of the book. On the other hand, the story itself is mostly readable although the tense is quite confusing and at time, off putting. Similarly, the flow of the story is a little stilted in places and distracts from the enjoyability of the tale. 

There’s potential for a lovely series of books here especially given the fantastic illustrations and the innovative idea and I’m curious to see what comes next. Reviewed on behalf of the author by The Book Dragon, this tale is awarded 3.5 stars. 

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