I had read both “Beautiful Joe” and “Beautiful Joe’s Paradise” over 50 years ago, and loved both books. I have just bought the 2 books again; after a local bookstore tracked down a copy of “Beautiful Joe’s Paradise” (I already had found the first book, “Beautiful Joe”). I sat down this week and read them both again with fond memories and with a few tears.
I wish these books were more readily available for libraries or in book stores. They should be required reading for children at the high school (or earlier) level. In fact, I was thinking that with so many cases one reads of in the papers of animal abuse, the perpetrators of these terrible acts ought to be required by the judicial system to read both books and made to write a report on them. Maybe that would turn a few hearts to be more compassionate.
— Regards, Ann Salsman Halifax, Nova Scotia