Children's Book Review: Dingle the Service Dog by Audrey Kinsella

Synopsis: It's a particularly hot summer this year, and Dingle, the book's title character, wants to assist his wheelchair-bound owner, Aunt Reeny, who is old and just a little bit cantankerous, and always resists any gesture of help. She, Dingle and the rest of the family often find themselves taking refuge from the heat at Ice Cream Dreams, the neighborhood ice cream stand.

Always looking for ways to help Aunt Reeny in her day-to-day activities, Dingle resolves to solve a messy problem once and for all: the ice cream cones at Ice Cream Dreams always melt before they can be brought back to Aunt Reeny's favorite spot under the outdoor umbrella! Thus the idea for Dingle's insulated ice cream cone carrier is born.

Enlisting the help of Aunt Reeny's nephew, Roddy, Dingle has to learn that hard work, patience and trial and error are all part of making his idea work. Finally, he has the special ice cream cone carrier ready to make its debut. It's an even hotter day outside than usual. Will his clever new invention wow the onlookers?

About the author:
Audrey Kinsella has worked as a medical research librarian and writer for the past 25 years, focusing much of her time on finding helpful tools for the elderly and disabled. She has worked as a volunteer for a children's book club at a Washington, D.C. public library; and for three years was also the director of information services for high technology programs at the National Rehabilitation Hospital. Kinsella is the author of more than 200 articles and multiple health industry related books. Check out the Dingle site too!

Review: This is an adorable book! We had recently read some books on the Stepping Stones sight that had dogs that were more human in nature, so daughter immediately thought of those dogs when we started reading this book and was quite taken with the book!  The story is sweet and endearing, and all kids love ice cream cones, so they can relate to Dingle trying to make his mistress happy in the summer heat. The book is also great to help kids to understand what helper dogs can do.

We are actually looking at getting a caregiver dog for my Dad's church, with it staying with us, and him and daughter taking it out to nursing homes, kids homes, and community activies, so the book was helpful in explaining to daughter that this would be some of the things that her possible future dog would be able to do also. I think this book would be great for all pre-K classrooms to help kids understand that when they see working dogs what they are actually doing!


Disclosure / Disclaimer:  I received the offer of the free book for this giveaway from the author via Bostick Communications, for review purposes. No compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told previously how to review the book.