About the Book and Author
This story for children aged 8-11 years celebrates the relationship we can have with a dog and the comfort, companionship they offer through their emotional intuition. The book also introduces the power of poetry. It is sad in places, but ultimately a ‘feel good’ book written by Ros Roberts and published by Little Tiger Press.
James splits his life between his mum’s and his dad’s houses. It’s far from perfect. Especially now Dad doesn’t have time for bike rides with him any more and Mum’s always with her new boyfriend. The constant is Digger, his dog and best friend. He’s the glue that holds the two halves of James’s life together.
When James finds a lump on Digger’s leg, everything changes. Digger is the one he can talk to about anything. But when it’s Digger he needs to talk about, where can he turn?
Ros Roberts grew up when phones were attached to the wall by wiggly wires and music was taped on to cassettes. Amazing teachers encouraged her love of writing, setting her daily challenges to create poems to read to the class. She became a teacher herself; in her own classroom, free writing was a daily necessity and she felt privileged to watch the children’s progress when words flowed without boundaries.
Ros loves the rain, eating brunch, tennis and TV. She loves dogs too – Texi, their beautiful Bernese mountain dog, inspired her debut book DIGGER AND ME. Ros and her family have enjoyed living abroad in Vancouver, B.C. and Austin, Texas, but she is very happy and proud to be back living with her husband and three sons in the north of England, where her roots lie.
Book Review
I learnt that poetry can help with the way you feel about things
I really enjoyed reading Digger and Me. The characters were well described and I felt like I knew them. This read wasn’t what I was expecting when I first looked at the book but I ended up loving this book. This book is about the relationship between Digger (dog) and James (boy). It is written in first person from James’ point of view. It is a sad story and I think the author could have gone further with the sadness (but this is a personal opinion as I quite like sad stories).
Mr Froggatt really stood out to me and I would love to have him as my teacher! His way of teaching was brilliant and the way that the author included poetry made me enjoy this book even more. The children in year six each had a blue poetry book which they would share with Mr Froggatt and if they wanted to, they would share it to the class.
I love James’ poetry especially the ones about him and his dog and I think that he is really creative. I learnt that poetry can help with the way you feel about things and for James writing down his thoughts helped him a lot. James’ parents were so supportive and it is really sweet how wherever James goes Digger goes too.
This book made me feel all different types of emotions, from sad to happy, I laughed and got annoyed but all good reads make different people feel different things. I would definitely recommend for children over 8 years.
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Reviewer Profile
- Name: Lottie
- Age: 10 years
- Likes: poetry, baking and outdoors
- Dislikes: spiders and mushrooms
- Favourite Book: A Pocketful of Stars by Aisha Bushby
- Favourite Song: Hold On by Chord Overstreet
- Favourite Film: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
