The Shiba Force - The Dulling

Something on the farm is going quiet, one small surrender at a time.

ChiChi has a new home and no idea how to fit inside it. The Blue Ridge farm belongs to Redd, and to Hank, who is still learning how to be helped. She is the newest dog here. The others think she is slow, because she keeps stopping to count things.

Which is how she is the first one to see the dust.

It falls out of empty air. It settles on shoulders and shelves and on the stories nobody quite gets around to telling. Where it gathers, sound goes small and color goes dim. First came the dust. Then the silence. Then the Dulling.

The Dulling never frightens anyone. That is what makes it dangerous. It offers. A quieter room. An easier day. A smaller self. One by one the people and dogs ChiChi loves begin agreeing to be a little bit less, and nobody notices, because every step down looks like kindness.

Four bells have to answer along one unbroken path: pasture, porch, doorway, house. Every note has to be honestly chosen. No dog can ring another dog's bell. And the dog standing in the doorway is the one who most wants to keep it closed.

A story about starting over, and about loving someone so carefully that you forget to let them decide.

This is a book for any child who has walked into a room where everyone already knows each other. It is also a book for the grown-up reading over their shoulder, for anyone who has cared for someone they love and slowly, kindly, taken their choices away.

Fifteen original interior illustrations. An Author's Note written for young readers and grown-ups alike.

Book Five of The Shiba Force. An illustrated chapter book for readers 8 to 10.