National Geographic Kids Chapters Animal Superstars

National Geographic Kids Chapters  Animal Superstars: And More True Stories of Amazing Animal Talents by Aline Alexander Newman                                         Hardback Book: 111 pages                            

Animal lover here and I enjoy reading true stories about animals and the amazing things they do.    In this book there are three different animals whose stories are told.   Opee the Austrailian Shepherd, owned by Mike Schelin turns out to love riding on Mike’s motorcycle, so much so, that when Mike enters a motocross, Opee doesn’t want to stay behind, he wants to ride with Mike.   So, Mike takes him on some test spins and buys Opeeriding gear, his own helmet complete with goggles, a special vest to wear that attaches to Mike’s jacket to help keep Opee from falling off the bike.  They have had one bad spill on the Motocross but so far only that one and the worst injury Opee received was a scrape on his nose and leg, nothing broken.    Their first Motocross competition was the Lake Elsinore Grand Prix which is an actual track and the race runs 100 miles.   Opee did it with no problem at all.   Mike knew Opee was special and he saw all the folks at the race hollering and wanting to pet Opee.  This gave Mike an idea.   He would use Opee to help people, he would take him to hospitals to visit sick kids and get him registered as a therapy dog but first he wanted Opee to do something no other dog had ever done, he decided to enter them in the most challenging motocross race of all – the Baja 500 in Mexico.   The race fee alone was a thousand dollars, then hotel, food and gas to pay for, too.   Mike couldn’t afford it all on his own so he started looking for sponsors who would pay them to advertise for their companies by wearing gear with the sponsors name or brand on them, or use equipment made by the sponsors company.   Through someone who had helped him during the Lake Elsinor Grand Prix when his muffler fell off, he got a sponsorship from the person who owned the muffler company, he also helped him to get endorsments and sponsorships from Dog Food Companies (and these companies also gave him free dog food),  racing equipment companies sponsored the pair and some sponsors also gave them money to pay to compete and for their gas, lodging and food while competing.     The Baja race was 500 miles long and not on a track but open road where you never cover the same ground twice and racers had to carry cellphones in case they got lost!    Also there was a time limit, Baja racers have to finish the race in 18 hours.   Also in this race any type of vehicle could compete, any type of bikes (motocross and street bikes), cars, trucks, ATVs, even Monster Trucks!    Baja was a scary you really had to pay attention every second.    Mike and Opee end up racing as a team with three of Mike’s buddies running relay with Mike and Opee, with Mike and Opee riding the longest stretches.   At one point Mike had to stop and make Opee get off because the sandy hill they were about to go up Mike was afraid the bike might flip over so Mike rode and Opee ran to the top (Opee beat him to the top) then Opee jumped back on and away they went.    There is more to the story and it is a good one.    Then there is the story of Bob Will the  wildlife rehabilitator (a person who has been trained to help wild animals in need) who talks about the animals he has helped and the hurt animals people drop off at his house for him to help ( a swan with a broken wing, a blind turtle, etc.).   The story told here is about one of the groundhogs he has helped.    Where Bob lives (near Lake Erie) ground hogs aren’t the cute little critter that is brought out on Ground Hogs day for a big party day.   Where Bob lives people try to kill groundhogs as they consider them rodents and pests.   This particular story is about a baby ground hog that was shot in the head.    He guessed whoever shot it probably killed its parents and siblings and someone just managed to rescue this one.    Bob and his roommate took turns nursing the baby back to health but while it got stronger they found out the bullet had damaged the babies brain and it would walk in circles wherever it went.   They named the baby, “Sidewinder”, which is kind of cute now that I think of it.   When she ate, she would eat a bite then walk in a circle – mealtimes took forever, cause she was a hungry girl.   Bob taught a special needs class by day and he took “Sidewinder,” to school to show his class.   The Custodian thought it was something how she walked in a circle and alerted the media with, “Have I got a story for you.”   From there Sidewinder’s fame spread and now she has online videos and is known worldwide as Dunkirk Dave (so dubbed by the 1^st newspaper reporter that did a story on her because the town they live in is named Dunkirk) and she gets visits from her fans at her dollhouse home at Bob’s house where he gives her visitors groundhog puppets to remember her by.  The third story in the book is about Tuna the white cat with green eyes.  Samantha Martin is Tuna’s owner.   Samantha loves all animals and studied the care and raising of them in college.   She dreamed of being an animal trainer for tv and movies.   The book tells the story of how Samantha went from taking Tuna to photoshoots for pet foods and products to teaching her tricks and landing gigs for Tuna at fairs to movies to playing lead guitar in her own Kitty Cat Rockband!   Good stories all and I do recommend this book to any one of any age, especially animal lovers.  Good family book to read together, great stories for teachers to read to their class, good reality tales to bring out our empathy for our fellow creatures.    Well done, Aline Alexander Newman.

 - Shirley J.