Katie Up and Down the Hall by Glenn Plaskin

Buffalo & Erie County Public Library staff review by Patricia Covley:

It seems like every time you turn around there is another book about a cute dog and its owner.  Journalist Glenn Plaskin lives in downtown Manhattan opposite the World Trade Center.  After years of thinking about becoming a dog owner, Plaskin decides to adopt Katie, the runt of a litter of cocker spaniels.  Pearl, an elderly woman who lives down the hall from Plaskin and Katie becomes a sort of mentor to Plaskin.  She greatly misses her own cocker spaniel who died two years earlier.

 Katie soon becomes a fixture in Plaskin's apartment building.  Where previously residents had passed pleasantly but fleetingly, they become friends with Pearl acting as matriarch to their sort of family.

What sets this book apart from other dog titles is its description of what happens to the "family" during the tragedy of September 11.  Plaskin becomes separated from Pearl.  What happens then makes Plaskin rethink the definition of family.

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