Thanks to Sandpiper Publicity, I am giving away one print copy of Almost Perfect away.
Book Description:
Dreams come true in almost perfect ways—it might just take a special boy and his dog to make them happen.Bess Rutledge, a cranky seventy-year old, has dreamed of winning the Westminster Dog Show all her life. Despite her decades-long career as one of America’s top Standard Poodle breeders, Bess has decided she’s too old to hold on to this foolish dream. She sells off all the dogs in her once famous kennel except for the aging champion McCreery and his mischievous, handsome son Breaker. Part of Bess senses they might have been the ones to take her to Westminster, if only she’d dared to try.When Bess meets Benny, a fourteen year-old with mild autism, she learns he has a dream of his own: to impress his self-absorbed mother. Benny is drawn into the world of dog shows and becomes convinced he has found the perfect way to gain her attention. If he can win Westminster with either McCreery or Breaker, he just knows his Mom will finally be proud of him. Getting Bess to go along with his plan, however, is not going to be so easy. . .
About Diane Daniels Manning:
Diane Daniels Manning is the co-founder and director of The New School in the Heights, a therapeutic school in Houston, Texas which helps children dealing with social-emotional challenges find success in school and life. She has a Ph.D. in Education and a post-doctoral Master of Public Health (MPH) from Harvard and is a practicing child psychoanalyst certified by the American Psychoanalytic Association. Formerly, she was the Director of the Reading and Learning Disabilities Clinic at Tufts University, Lecturer and Research Associate in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Harvard, and Chair of the Department of Education at Tulane University. She learned the inner workings of dog show kennels by writing an authorized oral history of a lifetime President of the Poodle of Club of America. Her writing awards include the Faulkner-Wisdom Novella Prize and the Women in Film and Television Short Script Competition.
Great giveawy, thanks for hosting it!
Also, how do you add those rafflecopter things?
Latest blog post; http://awkwarddonkey.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/my-new-baby.html
I love dogs and stories with dogs in them. Toss in a kid on the autism spectrum and you have a hit in my book. I’m a big softie.
I also love books with pets in them.
the animal part’s interesting
I love that the main character has standard poodles because I have two standard poodle pets. Interested to know about the mild autistic child too.
A captivating story which is ideal. saubleb(at)gmail(dot)com
The description pulled me in. I love dogs and I guess there’s something about stories about children trying to overcome the limits that autism tries to put on them that interests me.
I’d love all stories about canines. Dogs are wonderful creatures!
I also like stories about pets.
I’d love all stories about canines. Dogs are wonderful creatures!