Review: Deeply moving and uplifting
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 29, 2013
As an avid dog person, I own six dogs--a whippet, a chocolate lab, a lhasa apso-shih tzu mix, and the rest are mixed-breeds sired by my lab. I treat every dog as a beloved family member--that's why any story or film that features dogs is a deep emotional ride for me. So if you're like me who cried buckets over such movies as `Hachiko: a Dog's Story' or "Marley and Me', you'll laugh and cry over Gwyn Charlett's inventive retelling of the life of the famous World War 2 dog, Judy.At the end of the Second World War, Judy became famous for receiving the Dickin Medal, mainly for surviving otherwise "unsurvivable" mishaps: always with soldiers or sailors, Judy naturally shared the fate of her human companions, always narrowly missing death. But miraculously, somehow she was never killed intentionally or accidentally by some stray bullet or a bomb blast. Not only that, she also served as a silent, indomitable inspiration for among the prisoners of war in a Japanese camp. And I emphasize: those were deadly years spent in a Japanese prison, where her life could have been instantly snuffed out by some Japanese soldier's bullet, yet she survived it all.I know that dogs are capable of unconditional love, but even I would have found it hard to believe Judy's story without all the evidence--it is simply fantastic, and the story made me love my own dogs more. Whenever I look into my dogs' eyes these days, I remember Judy's life and times, and I appreciate my beloved dogs love for me even more.Judy's amazing story was first told through Eric Varley's book, `Judy's Story: the Dog with Six Lives.' But Gwyn Charlett has written a unique, more emotionally resonant take on Judy's story: in this book, Charlett uses Judy's own point of view, thereby further humanizing Judy and making her daily struggle through all those years of hardship more relatable.I can't recommend `Judy: the Big-hearted Heroine' enough. It is a story that will be told for generations to come. I started reading this with a smile, and finished it with tears in my eyes. If you love dogs, read this. If you know anyone who loves dogs, send this as a gift to them. This is a deeply moving tale that deserves a wider audience, or at least, a Hollywood movie version. Five stars, no less.