Blue

Tony Barclay is a retired juvenile corrections probation officer and a
former public-health research associate at the University of Toronto.

This book is an attempt to combine science fiction with a warm story of
a boy, his dog, and his adjustment to country life. In this case the dog
is a survivor from a crash by an alien spaceship. The boy communicates
with him through a thought-imaging process.

If one can suspend disbelief sufficiently to accept the basic idea, the
story is successful. The boy, his mother, his employer, and his drinking
uncle are all believable characters. The feeling of Prairie farm life,
which may be a little out of date, is still evoked in a way that brings
back fond memories to older readers and, one hopes, will arouse younger
readers to further interest.

This is a good book, well targeted at its preadolescent readers. The
climax is exciting enough; the resolution of the plot is believable and
satisfying; and the ideas are original.