The book was a children's book and having children at home that we read to frequently, I was always up for a good one. This one was called The Dog Who Wouldn't Be and it was by a writer I had never come across: Farley Mowat.
As I began the book that night at the dinner table, I knew just a sentence or two in that I had discovered a great writer. Sure enough, The Dog Who Wouldn't Be proved a wonderful book. We went on to read Owls in the Family, Lost in the Barrens, and, later, The Boat that Wouldn't Float. Like all great chidlren's writers, Mowat wrote stores that could be read with equal profit and enjoyment by adults and children.
Mowat had a command of language you just don't run across very often and he knew how to tell a story. Later I learned more about him and that was a Canadian conservationist and a beloved national writer in Canada. He wrote a number of books about the Canadian wilderness, as well as about the Eskimos.
I heard today that he had died at the age of 92. It's a great loss.
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