I found this softcover in this Little Free Library in Waltham MA while dropping off some books of my own, and nabbed it for another release copy.

One of my favorite animal stories, The Incredible Journey still grabs me. It's sweet and funny, and dramatic in all the right places - and to this day I can bring tears to my eyes just by thinking about the final few paragraphs. [Good tears, I hasten to add...] It opens with an excerpt from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself", the bit about "I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained..."

Those who are only familiar with the story via Homeward Bound, the talking-animals movie from 1993, are missing a lot. Oh, I enjoyed the film well enough, but by anthropomorphizing the animals so much (not to mention adding the goofier elements) the film changed the whole tone of the story. In the book (and in the 1963 film adaptation, which was much more faithful to the book; I recommend it), the animals do not "talk"; their behavior is always well within the bounds of what animals could do [though the story does start out assuming that they are a more closely-knit trio than most groups of pets]. Even their most unnerving adventures are believable, and if there's a coincidence or two along the way to help them out of difficulties, well, those things happen {wry grin}.

One of the reasons I found the book so touching was that it did make the animals so realistic: the young dog's loyalty to his first master, his pained confusion at their separation [the three animals have been boarded with a friend of the family for nine months while the family is overseas], his sudden urge to go back to his home, and his sense of responsibility that requires he take the others with him; the old dog's wicked sense of humor, love of comfort, but unquestioning submission to the young dog's leadership [no doubt who's the alpha-critter in this pack]; and the cat's cool and exquisitely Siamese-cat-like behavior, in which he follows the others without hesitation but manages to convey that it's all his own idea at every step.

An interesting touch: while the animals have names, only the human characters use them; the narrator, when describing the animals on their lonely trek, refers to them by description only, as they might perceive each other: "the old dog/the terrier", "the young dog/the retriever", "the cat". Their interactions with a curious bear cub, a benign but mad old hermit, a tribe of Ojibway, a porcupine, a henhouse... all play out in a manner both charming and believable. I really love this book!

[There's a short TV Tropes page on the book.]

Guidelines for safely visiting and stocking Little Free Libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the LFL site here.

I left this book in this new-to-me Little Free Library; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in MA here.]

*** Released for the 2021 Movie challenge. ***