In the book Lassie never became like a human and talked but the narrator could see the reasoning and tell us readers. The movie stayed close to the book but as always you can get more from written words than acting them out. MGM had an all star cast, Roddy McDowell, Donald Crisp, Elsa Lanchester, Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty, Edmund Gween, Elizabeth Taylor and dog star, Pal. Look at my Profile page under photos to see what I am driving at, I had many names for Blondie and Lassie Good Girl was one such nickname. The blaze and the muzzle, plus both have sable coats which are similar but in different degrees. What makes Lassie extra important to me is though Blondie and Lassie are different breeds, papillons have a similar face to collies. Her first encounter with a TV some 15 years ago was seeing and barking at the people on the screen. I am not sure if she really even watched the TV because she generally fell asleep while we watched but I remember telling her look at Lassie on the TV. I chose to end my yearly May reads celebrating our beloved dog, Blondie with this book.💖🐶 When I chose this book last year, I had no idea, she would not be near me as I read this but we did enjoy watching the 1943 'Lassie Come Home.' based on Eric Knight's 1940 novel, a couple months before her death.

I was looking for dog 🐕 centered books and knowing all about Lassie via the TV show, movies and the general public knowledge of this 'lass', but I did not expect a story so meaningful and powerful. Worse than anything is that Lassie is shipped to Scotland, but Lassie is an intrepid dog, and can 400 miles really separate her from her family? This is a warm family classic. When an affluent person of the community offers to ameliorate the situation the family finds itself in by buying Lassie, the immediate response is no, but as the situation gets more critical, the father changes his mind. Lassie is owned by a family that adores her, but when the father loses his job, it becomes difficult to keep Lassie fed along with everyone in the family.

Knight was familiar with collies in particular as a breeder of these dogs.

However, reading this novel the reader gets a sense of respect and devotion that Knight clearly found evident in the relationship between dogs and their masters. Sadly, Eric Knight never got to see the fame that Lassie acquired, because he was killed in a World War II plane crash in 1943. Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight is a novel published in 1940 and when it was made into a movie in 1943, the character rose to prominence.

Lassie come home book