The Pekinese Who Saved Civilization [Review 1]
By Sir Addison Silber Howell, Esq., As Told to Trisha Adelena Howell

     Trisha Adelena Howell has written several fiction books (You're Mine), children's books (The Princess and the Pekinese) and a book of poetry (Living in a Glowing World). Sir Addison Silber Howell, Esq. has written this one book (thus far).

     If Mark Twain wrote like a dog, he would write like Sir Addison Silber Howell, Esq., about dogdom, dog history, the supremacy of the Pekinese, the joys of poop sculpting, the trials and tribulations of loving an owner, Trisha Adelena Howell (who published the book with her husband David), who seems untrainable at times, and the endless joys of eating more steak.

     Addison, the canine answer to the feline bon vivant Garfield, weighs in on the magnificence of dogs (Pekinese especially) and the folly of their humans (exercise is one major no-no), through darling photographs and witty, charming prose. He reveals the canine character as writer, philosopher, educator, architect, gourmet, social reformer, and champion of dogs determined to rewrite ignorant human history, including the story of creation. Move over, Al Gore: Dogs invented the internet! Any owner who has ever doubted who's in charge will laugh and recognize a beloved pooch. Addison's heart-stopping face on every page makes you fall in love.

     Addison's treatise is adorable. However, the "Military and Foreign Policy" section, a strident sarcastic anti-US tirade, labeling America the "Big Police Dog," adds nothing to Addison's insights and jars the reader from the playful tone in the rest of the book: "If another nation has some petroleum, water or other natural resources (especially food!) that we'd like to have, naturally we should seize them outright or buy them for dirt cheap." Perhaps Addison should take his owner and move to North Korea for a year and then write a sequel to see how her channeling of "his" views has changed.

     But as Addison himself says, "Full property rights"--such as Trisha Adelena Howell's right to own the equipment to publish the book--"are the cornerstone that makes possible all freedoms of expression: freedom of speech (freedom to bark)," which Addison and his owner make use of through this book. The harsh unexpected satiric "bite" directed at the U.S. government, so out of character with Addison's live-and-let-eat tone, is the only major disappointment in an otherwise long-tongue-firmly-in-cheek imaginative book with those great pictures certain to delight dog lovers everywhere.