Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

This was a fairly good idea.   It's based on real people, and events, but is fictional, and is meant to teach children about animals and animal cruelty.   However, there were multiple issues for me while reading this.   First off, it's presented as fact when it's a kind of garbled mythology of how dogs came to be from a dog's point of view.   And keeping in mind that other than some e-mails sent by a man named Freddie, this is told from the dogs point of view.   So how do the dogs know what writing is, and which letters are which?   They know that, but not the name of the animal rights group that comes to get them so they call them 'come-and-go people'?   It's small inconsistencies like this that kind of run rampant through the story; the dogs know about humans and human culture when it suits the story, and don't when it doesn't.  

The whole 'wolves volunteer to be dogs to show the humans to remember their hearts' seems a bit like ramming the message down my throat, too.   And it seems odd that this is mentioned, while the mother's feelings about being separated from her pup are ignored completely.   It seems contrived to make it okay to take a puppy away from the mother, and didn't make sense to me.   But again, the dogs act like humans when it suits, and that humanity is ignored when it would be a determinant to the story the author wants to tell. 

Furthermore, I'm a little uncomfortable with the three men at the dump being real - if the pictures at the end are any indication - and yet one of the activities in the back are to come up with their backstories and figure out how they ended up living in a dump.   I'm sorry, but don't they have actual real backstories?   Why not tell the children a little bit about them instead of asking them to fictionalize their lives?   

And while overall the writing was competent, there were some glaring errors.   There was a quotation mark ending a paragraph that had no dialogue for no reason.   "It shelter..." was used instead of, "it shelters," when everything else was in present tense. 

The illustrations and photographs were a bit lackluster as well.   Not the worst thing I've read, but far from the best.   Nothing I'd pay for, nor will I continue this series.   I'd rather donate money directly to a shelter, to be quite frank. 

The last half with actual information on the organizations that rescue animals, and the real story about the dump dogs is a little bit better just for being factual, straightforward, and more consistent.