“When does something begin?” “When does something end?” This book gave me interesting questions to think before and after reading the book. Written by a Swedish write, Kerstin Ekman, the translation of this book made it easier to read for a beginning readers like me. It’s like a short fiction story with only 130 pages. This book has won many prizes, such as the Great Prize for Fiction and the Pilot Prize.



This is how it starts. A puppy follows his mother and owner to fish in a snowy day. Eventually he gets separated with his mother, lost, and catches in the heavy storm. From that day, he has to live on by himself, like an adult dog. Surviving in the cold, silent forest, all he can do is to live longer as he can with self-training. He meets various kind of animal in the forest. There is a lot of unknown relationships between the pup and the other species, some are enemies and some are harmless, allies. Although he reaches a barn, it is abandoned. After he grows up and becomes a full-adult dog, he finally meets a person, one of the hunters. He also gets to fight with one of their dogs. This is a unique bond between the man and the dog ends with the dog becoming the favorite hunting dog of the man and he gets to have his house.


It seemed like it was a normal story with the perspective of the dog, but there was many things going on in the story. Although this is translated novel, I’ve noticed some changes in the words as the story went on. The name the author called the dog was different. At some points the dog was called “the Pup,” and after he was grown he was called “the Grey Dog,” which confused be a little. At the first glace, I thought it was a childish fiction book. There were also many ways to read this book in different perspectives or point of view. We could be the dog that suffers in the snowy forest or a third person who is looking at the dog suffering. I think this book was interesting. I liked how the author created the scene and used some pictures in various spots. Not only explaining about the scenes, this also helped me to get the idea of the author and helped me to understand the story. This book also contained no speeches, quotes. There was the unique way of the author to express the conversation of the humans


I suggest this book for anyone who wants to spend the free time on reading. It is also small and easy to carry around. With the short length of the story, there was more than I expected. This book was a lovely little book that I was addicted for whole weeks, reading twice. If you want to read a beautiful and touching book, you should try “the Dog” by Kerstin Ekman.