Curious mix of different fantasy genres. Touching, nonetheless. ( )

An absolute classic YA novel. ( )

This is a book that just doesn't bother with genre boundaries. It starts with five pages of scienc-y fiction/fantasy, then becomes a straight up animal-centered story (mostly), but later include some Celtic myth, and the whole time we have a topical story of an Irish foster child in England. Her father is imprisoned for political violence, and the book was published in 1975, during The Troubles.

Oh, and it all works.

I won't even try to give this a star rating (even though some characters are stars), because it will hit everyone differently. Give it a try.

I remembered enjoying this book as a child, so I read it to my 11 year old. He says it rates a billion stars-he LOVED it. ( )

For a book that is ostensibly about a girl and her dog, this novel is actually surprisngly entertaining. Jones uses her typical charm and ability to write the everyday into extraordinary to weave a story that is both energetic with celestial magic and warmly wonderful with humanity. She tells the story of a wrongly accused star (only Jones could make this odd choice of protagonist work) who is banished to Earth to serve out his punishment in a canine body, with limited means of finding the true crimical as redemption. Choosing to give the re-embodied Sirius a dog's body is a great touch in my opinion, as it stays true to the nature of the star, gives the creature an instant connection with humans, and gives him just the right amount of challenges and benefits to make the book a wonderful romp. ( )