Summer Reading Response

  Over the summer, I read a book called "A Dog's Purpose" by W. Bruce Cameron. In the book, the main character goes through many lives from a dog's perspective. For example, in one life of the main character's lives he was a police dog named Ellie. In another life, the main character was Toby, a dog living in an unlicensed animal rescue center. Although the main character learns many different lessons through his lives, I would like to focus on character change.
  Throughout the book, the main character continuously questions whether his purpose in life had been fulfilled after accomplishing many goals. At first, the main character learns social as well as stealth skills. For example, when he was a puppy, he learned not to trust humans, as well as how to scavenge for food from his feral mother. Later on in his life when he is named Toby, he learns how to get along with other dogs as well as how to love and trust humans. In a later life of his, the main character further improves his trust of humans and learns to truly love his boy, Ethan. Toward the middle of the book, the main character learns an important skill that saves Ethan's life. This shows that over time, the main character's skills grow together and effect his future lives.
  The next life of the main character really changes his point of view on life. During this life, the main character becomes a dog used in a police K9 unit. I feel that the main character learns the most in this life because of many different events he encounters. For example in one scenario, Ellie, the main character's current name, is tasked with locating and rescuing a frightened elementary school student that hides during a thunderstorm. This part of the book really shows a lot of growth in the character, because Ellis had to enter a sewer, locate the child and pull him back to safety which results in an acid burn on Ellie's nose. As you can see the main character really used traits he has gained throughout his previous lives. For example, the main character saved Ethan once from drowning, and had to pull the elementary school student out from the water and keep him above the water level that was quickly rising due to heavy rainfall. This shows how the character inherits many traits from previous lives.
All in all, the main character has grown significantly since his first life. Furthermore, all traits or skills the character learned have been utilised in some way in the book, or will be used in the next book, "A Dog's Journey". In the next book I hope to see the character grow even more and be able to find out his purpose.