Welcome to Part One of Day 12 of the 4th Annual March MG Madness! Today we celebrate Allen Paul's Honey the Dixie Dingo Dog: Champion of the Strays....
Honey the Dixie Dingo Dog: Champion of the Strays
by Allen Paul
6/16/14
Telemachus Press
A young swamp dog named Honey yearns to rejoin her pack after being trapped and nearly shot; luckily, she gains allies who can help her, even as a two-legged killer stalks her old haunts.
A coyote trapper named Topper Guy is about to pull the trigger when his sidekick, Raghead, warns, “That ain’t no coyoto.” While they discuss Honey’s fate over beers, Miss Jane drives up. She has a rescue operation for Dixie Dingos and often drives back roads around Savannah River swamps looking for stray dingo pups. Sensing Honey’s peril, she tells Topper Guy he trapped a rare breed of dog – not a coyote – and ends up paying fifty dollar to ransome for Honey and take her to the farm where other rescues live.
Soon after that dead critters start turning up in the swamp. A game warden points to poison. Miss Jane and Honey are convinced it’s the work of Topper Guy. How she uses Honey’s speeed and agility to get the best of the notorious trapper and put an end to the killings in the swamp… and how Honey’s pack gets rescued from the swamp … make for an unusual and exciting read.
Praise for Honey the Dixie Dingo Dog
“Allen has written a delightful novel about the escapades of Honey the Dixie Dingo Dog living in the swamps of the Southeast. Told in the dog’s voice, this page-turning tale is rich in detail and wonderfully captures the landscape. The dingos have a fascinating history, and Honey is bound to add much to their lore.”
- Norman Gomlak, former editor at the Baltimore Sun and McClatchy Newspapers
“This is Allen’s first book for younger readers but he proves more than equal to the challenge. His endearing Honey character speaks in a charming southern voice and with the timeless wisdom of a Huckleberry Finn.”
-Ewa Luczak, the English Institute, Warsaw University
2 – Jaws of Steel
Never shoulda chased that sorry skunk through the mornin’ fog or any time for that matter. Sooner or later the little yuckster was bound to foul up somethin’. And even if he didn’t squirt his yucky perfume, even if I caught him, I wouldn’t wish skunk meat on a lurkin’ log. It’s worse’n road kill … okay, trail kill if that better suits.
My dumb move was caused by lettin’ down my guard. Sometimes, without any warnin’ at all, I forget to listen to the wild genes that alert me to danger. When that happens I’m as blind as a nursin’ pup; and that’s exactly what happened when that pajama-suited nitwit ran out in front of me struttin’ like he owned the swamp, tauntin’ take your best shot dingo girl! Sure I bolted after him … ran the little jerk half way down the ridge to where he scrambled inside a hollow log half my size. I could stick my head in only so far—enough to see his come and get me sucker! grin. I cut loose a few high-pitched barks just to let the beady-eyed bugger know his string was runnin’ out.
Then, quicker’n a bat flyin’ out of a cypress beard, the candy-striper darted out the far end of the log and took off lickety-split down the Critter Trail toward the water. I knew full well I was s’posed to stay off that trail, that coyotes patrolled it all the time. How many times had Mama and my wild genes warned me it was courtin’ disaster to even go there? But dumb me, I plumb forgot and chased off after the rabble rouser. I was catchin’ up, too … all set to nab him by his bushy tail … when all of a sudden—
WHAM!
Allen Paul’s bestselling book, Katyń: Stalin’s Massacre and the Triumph of Truth, has been called the definitive work on a crime that arguably remains the thorniest issue in Russo-Polish relations nearly 75 years after it was committed. In 2008, the Polish government awarded him the Commander’s Cross, its highest honor for non-citizens, for his work on the subject. In 2010, he received an Honorary Diploma from the Polish Foreign Ministry for “exceptional contributions to international understanding of Polish history.”
A lifelong writer, Allen began his career with The Raleigh Times and the Associated Press, where he covered state government and wrote feature stories. Later, he wrote speeches for prominent members of Congress and a member of the President’s cabinet. While serving as President of the Agriculture Council of America in the 1980s, he pioneered grassroots lobbying methods to fight and eventually end economically crippling grain embargoes. He has consulted widely on non-profit organizational development and fundraising.
His first love, however, has always been writing. His Katyń book tells a gripping story based on the lives of three Polish families. Published originally by Charles Scribner’s, it has been translated into five languages; Polish editions alone have sold more than 100,000 copies. In a New York Times review, Robert Conquest of Stanford University, one of the greatest living authorities on Stalinism, called the book “a moving reconstruction of the human [story].” The Boston Globe credited Katyn for “[laying] bare the massive cover-up of the murders and of the Soviet guilt—a cover-up that appears to have involved Roosevelt and Churchill, as well as Stalin.”
Allen recently completed his first novel, The Amber Eye, which is based on a daring raid carried out by the Polish underground in 1944 to capture evidence of Stalin’s guilt in the Katyn murders. He researched the novel on a Fulbright Research Fellowship in Poland in 2010-11. His first children’s book, Honey the Dixie Dingo Dog: Champion of the Strays has just been published by Telemachus Press.
He holds an undergraduate degree in English from Guilford College, and a Masters of International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He first encountered the Katyn issue in 1986 during studies at the SAIS Center for European Studies in Bologna, Italy. He and his wife, Betsy, grew up in Aurora, NC. They have a daughter, a son and four granddaughters.
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This book sounds so fun. I love the dog's voice in the excerpt!
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