A rescue dog and her new owner learn how to trust each other and become a family in this SEL picture book based on the illustrator’s real-life pet-adoption experience.
With its beautifully illustrated and charming storyline, "Mela" will have a special appeal to young readers with an interest in dogs or who have a canine companion of their own. This hardcover edition of "Mela" from Creative Editions is especially and unreservedly recommended for family, elementary school, and community library Pets/Wildlife picture book collections for children ages 6-9.
–Midwest Book Review, 01/17/2024
A dog named Millie teaches a child to be brave. A dog named Mela demonstrates how love assuages fear. In “Mela,” Maddalena Schiavo adapts the real-life experience of the book’s illustrator, Eleonora Pace, in telling of a timid puppy that is adopted by a young girl and her family. At one point, Ms. Pace shows Mela traveling by car to her new home under a gorgeous starry sky; at another, she depicts the young dog cowering at the onslaught of unfamiliar crowds and noises. “Any sudden sound could make her run and hide,” the girl tells us, as lightning snaps over distant mountains. “But she realized I would find her and make her safe.” “Mela” doesn’t so much tell a story as it traces emotional arcs: from solitude to togetherness, from unease to contentment, from anxiety to calm.
–Meghan Cox Gurdon, Wall Street Journal, 03/20/2024