Wildest Dog and Other African Tales

The Wildest Dog and Other African Tales introduces a new story to this popular series. Allthe animals, including his own pack, think Wild Dog is too wild. In fact, he’s the wildest dogthey’ve ever met. His constant activity leads him into a variety of adventures and, ultimately,into danger. But the wild dog pack saves the day and his own mother defends his wild ways,pointing out that curiosity and boldness are essential traits for an alpha dog, such as hisfather and herself. Rather than squelching Wild Dog’s high spirits, she affi rms them.In six heartwarming tales, Avril van der Merwe highlights character traits or habits thatmay trouble young children. Wild Dog’s hyperactive nature gets him into trouble, Pangolinuses her intelligence to outsmart Lion and discovers new friends in the process, Bushbaby’snocturnal habits lead the animals to assume he is shy, Hyena mistakenly thinks that if shechanges her identity she’ll be accepted, Hippo’s envy of Rhinoceros’ horn ends up creatingmore trouble than she anticipated, while Cheetah learns that his bragging doesn’t impresshis friends. Each animal character faces a challenge, but with plenty of encouragement andsupport from their friends, a lesson is learned and the outcome is always positive.

The Wildest Dog is a thought-provoking story from prize-winning author Avril van derMerwe. She drew inspiration from watching the antics of her seven-month-old GermanShepherd puppy who she adopted from a shelter in April 2021. Avril began writing forchildren when she worked as a pre-primary teacher in Cape Town, and high school Englishteacher in Johannesburg. She lives in Washington state (USA), where she works as aninspirational writer and speaker, as well as an author of children’s, young adult and adultfi ction, and poetry. Two of her short stories have been selected for an anthology forgrades 4–7, to be published by Penguin Books in 2022. Illustrated by Heidi-Kate Greeff, a Cape Town-based artist with a degree in Fine Artfrom the University of Pretoria. Her genuine love of animals and talent for creatingcharacters that come to life on the page result in beautifully drawn stories that quicklycapture our hearts.