I am Jax, Protector of the ranch by Catherine Stier, illustrated by Francesca Rosa

  This is the first in a series of first-person narratives of working dogs for beginning chapter readers. I was excited to read this, because it features a Great Pyrenees, a breed which I personally like and which our library patrons are familiar with because of a beloved reading dog we had for several years.

Jax is one of several working dogs on a ranch in Texas. Sweep, a border collie, herds the sheep. Bev, an Anatolian shepherd, is the lead livestock guardian dog with Stormy, another Great Pyrenees, the puppy in training. Jax's job, along with the other livestock guardian dogs, is the live with the sheep, his pack, and take care of all of them. While he enjoys attention from the humans and looks out for them, his real family is the sheep that he was raised with.

Jax takes readers through an exciting night on the ranch, guarding the sheep from various perils including a coyote and finally a mountain lion. Narration from Jax and dialogue from his owner, Gail, as she explains Jax's job to her grandson Colton, fill out the details in the life of a guardian dog. Black and white cartoons are scattered across the pages and the book comes in at a tidy 90 pages with easy to read large font.

I do have several caveats on this book. There is a minor typo on page 5 (a missing "a") and Jax, as well as other characters, go back and forth between speaking very formal English and Texas drawl, which sounds forced. The plot overall feels a little forced and the writing is somewhat stilted.

Verdict: Despite the drawbacks, kids love beginning chapter animal stories and this is sure to find an audience. It's outside the norm - there are lots of animal series, but none with working dogs and not a lot with the animal narrating the story - so this is unique as well. I hope that future volumes will show diversity in the human owners involved in the stories as well. Not a definite purchase, but if you are filling out your beginning chapters a nice additional choice. I'll be waiting until there are a number of titles available in paperback and then probably will add it to my series collection.

ISBN: 9780807516638; Published April 2020 by Albert Whitman; Borrowed from another library in my consortium