Sit, Stay, Love presents a young girl being raised by her father her mother is completely absent from the story.

But as I read more and more, I came to appreciate the layers in Howard’s piece. I wondered how Howard’s book about a middle grades girl who loves dogs would be any different from other books about young girls and dogs. When I first started reading, I found some of the content to be a bit hackneyed. After befriending Eric’s twin Lily and agreeing to help train Potato to be a show dog in order to earn money for her dad, Cecilia slowly learns that she may be falling in love with someone else beside Potato. What ray of hope she has of adopting Potato is ruined when the most popular kid in her class Eric comes in to adopt Potato. But when a new pug whom Cecilia names Potato comes to Orphan Paws, she falls in love. In addition, her best and only friend Mel just moved away, so her time is consumed with volunteering and Skyping Mel. But when the house that she shares with her dad (her mom left them a while ago) is condemned after a fire and she has to live with her aunt, Cecilia’s dream of owning her very own dog vanishes. I was excited to read this book because it’s about a pug (and my Aunt Cec had a wonderful pug named Mack) and the author is an English teacher in Florida! #loveFloridateachersĬecilia is obsessed with dogs and volunteers at Orphan Paws to help prepare rescue dogs for their forever home. Howard‘s Sit, Stay, Love ( Scholastic, 2016), a middle grades realistic fiction text about a young girl named Cecelia’s first love(s).

Sit, Stay, Love by J.J. Howard