I chose to end my yearly May reads celebrating our beloved dog, Blondie with this book.💖🐶 When I chose this book last year, I had no idea, she would not be near me as I read this but we did enjoy watching the 1943 'Lassie Come Home.' based on Eric Knight's 1940 novel, a couple months before her death. I was looking for dog 🐕 centered books and knowing all about Lassie via the TV show, movies and the general public knowledge of this 'lass', but I did not expect a story so meaningful and powerful. Worse than anything is that Lassie is shipped to Scotland, but Lassie is an intrepid dog, and can 400 miles really separate her from her family? This is a warm family classic.

When an affluent person of the community offers to ameliorate the situation the family finds itself in by buying Lassie, the immediate response is no, but as the situation gets more critical, the father changes his mind. Lassie is owned by a family that adores her, but when the father loses his job, it becomes difficult to keep Lassie fed along with everyone in the family.

Knight was familiar with collies in particular as a breeder of these dogs. However, reading this novel the reader gets a sense of respect and devotion that Knight clearly found evident in the relationship between dogs and their masters. Sadly, Eric Knight never got to see the fame that Lassie acquired, because he was killed in a World War II plane crash in 1943. Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight is a novel published in 1940 and when it was made into a movie in 1943, the character rose to prominence.