I read this excellent book called The Stray by the author of Babe: The Gallant Pig named Dick King-Smith. It was published in 1996.

Henny Hickathrift ran away from the retirement Home and was a stray. She found a family who offered to bring her into their house and see if she should stay. The people in the Good family are: Angela, Eleanor, Rosie, Barney, Rowley, and Mr. and Mrs. Good. Henny got to stay in the house and lots of adventures went on during that time. She got to keep a stray dog that she met before the Good family and named it Sweep. She won a Jackpot and gave half of it to the Mr. and Mrs. Good and kept the other half for herself. I thought this was a great because it did not have one problem after another.

I think a difference between this book and real life is you never win a jackpot in real life (only if you are very lucky). I don't know anyone who has. I think something that's the same as real life about this book is there are stray dogs wandering around who need a home. Another difference is whoever heard of an elderly woman drinking Coke? A similarity is people get sick all the time and in the book, Henny was the one that became sick.

I thought that a weakness in the book was that personally, I didnít like when they won the jackpot. The people didnít act realistic. I liked the book because you can tell what the people looked like because of their description. Like when the author explained Henrietta Hickathrift, I could see what she looked like in my head. Like I said, I did not like the jackpot part, but otherwise I thought it was an excellent book for all to read!