Reviews for Harry the Dirty Dog

The average rating for Harry the Dirty Dog based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-11-29 00:00:00 James L Prellwitz Gene Zion cunningly disguised one of the great existential questions of our age in this Dirty Harry book. Do you feel lucky? This is a book about identity: Am I white (with black spots) or black (with white spots) About change and transition: Do I have to remain how I was born. Can I not re-imagine myself. If I identify as a black dog with white spots (or by extension the ying to any yang be it gender, sexuality, or some more esoteric quality) can I not change? Can the leopard (or Scotty dog) change its spots? About civil liberties: When can indignities (such as baths) be imposed upon the young or upon minorities (Scotties), and when is it time to stand up to authority and say "No!" (or "woof"). And about consequence: Will your loved ones recognise your rights to make the choices you have? Will they even recognise you after the upheavals of your personal transition/journey. Above all this book lets you know that running away from home can be kinda fun. In short this modern classic of 20th century literature subsumes our bourgeois preconceptions in a tale of real drama and urgency, a creative maelstrom in which modern angst is conceptualised in canine form. For it is not a Scotty per se, rather it is a cypher for man's eternal (non)interconnectedness with the natural world, realised with Zion's characteristic perspicuity, its disingenuous indirectness a paradoxical signifier of its vital directness and its relevance, in real terms, to the anguished unreality of the modern - and yet forebodingly ancient - the disjunction of Man and his nearest (this terminology rapaciously encompassing Woman and her nearest) post-Jungian-evolutionary relation. There can be no better education for a child. Or adult. I commend it to your attention. And to the ages. Finis. Join my 3-emails-a-year newsletter #prizes …...

Review # 2 was written on 2017-04-03 00:00:00 Mariaelena Mendoza Pleasing little illustrations that woo your adult self to read it over and over again. Harry, the dog, is not so fond of bathing and shoots away to the city for an adventure. Well, as the name suggests, he gets dirty from the coal engines, the dusts and the smoke. Gene Zion packs a good tale of the dog who faces rejection by his owners as they fail to recognize his changed guise. Is that a black dog with white spot or a white dog with black spots? How will Harry ever get them to know! This short story never goes old with time. Made superb by the illustrator's dexterity with the pen. The pictures are perennially etched to the word adorable in our psyche.