Although I published a link of this review to Derrick’s blog yesterday, My Facebook won’t link to his blog, so I’m duplicating his entire post here on my blog. If you want to see it on his blog, please go to my yesterday’s post for a link. Again, I want to thank Derrick for the lovely review of both The China Bulldog and Prairies Moths. I posted that review earlier.
The China Bulldog
Judy Dykstra-Brown dedicates ‘The China Bulldog And Other Tales of a small-Town Girl’ to her parents and sisters with special thanks to Patti Jo, who took most of the photos in the book, some of which I have scanned and included in this review. This is in fact a heart warming tribute, especially to her parents, from each of whom she has claimed emotional and creative elements of herself.
This is a story of infancy, childhood, adolescence, and family life in an age when hard work, people’s own imaginations and creativity provided their entertainment, and relationships were all important. Growing up in vast open spaces, gave the author a desire to escape to a wider world, which she did, and in the process valued her origins once more. “Ours was little ecological system all it own. Mice feasted on grain spilled from burst seams in the garage. The cat feasted on the mice and we feasted on the steaks of Black Angus cattle who had eaten the ensilage from wheat stripped of its grains.”
‘Sweet Clover’ speaks of the land thus: “On these dry lands, what flowers there were/ tended to be cash crops or cattle feed./ Sweet clover or alfalfa.”
Our author chooses the tense of her sections with care, in particular when using the vivid or literary present to enhance immediacy.
Those of us who, like me, have followed Judy’s blog for more than a decade have marvelled of the fluidity of her poetry, sometimes of free verse as in ‘Blank Page’ in which she uses words as a powerful metaphor, sometimes including well-wrought, smoothly natural, rhyme.
We all know the challenge of ‘Blank Page’. Judy sees it as an opportunity.
“It stretches forever in front of me,/ There, no future happens until I create it./ And that is the power of words/ that rub like pieces of gravel between my toes./ I become less of a child in bearing them, grow to adolescence as I empty them from my shoe./ In storing them on the page, I become my own creator – / writing a new world with each decision of word./ On the page, I can, if I so choose,/ grow up again and again./ Each page filled, or every edit of the pages that came before it/ becomes another part of me that tells the same story:/ that growing enough to fill the space inside of me/ never happened.”
‘Church Purse’ is an example of Judy’s narrative rhyming poetry which continues in a similar vein for two more pages, relating a three year old’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. Here, in ‘The Upstairs Room’ we have “The windows in the upstairs hall streamed down shafts of light/ sliced open by the balusters that overlooked the flight.”
She engages all the senses: “I am from sounds in the prairie night. That sudden popping noise and choruses of mice families in the walls, my oldest sister in late from the dance, trying to sneak quietly up the wooden stairs to our all-girls loft where my middle sister lay sleeping and I lay listening for the opening of the door that led to her room whose windows opened up to a front porch roof where we sunbathed far above pesky neighbourhood boys with water pistols and inquisitive eyes.” The prose is as equally poetic as the verses. “…. the scramble of dog toenails on the wooden aisle….” brought laughter to the congregation. “My father’s forehead was ringed like an old tree” is actually a line from the poem ‘Shelter’; “Thus were the flickers of my disdain for boys fanned to a higher flame!” from the prose piece ‘Crushed’.
‘Temporary Rivers’ speaks of children’s response to rain coming in hot summer. “… in hot July, we streamed unfettered out into the rain. Bare-footed, bare-legged, we raised naked arms up to greet rivers pouring down like a waterfall from the sky. Rain soaked into the gravel of the small prairie town streets, down to the rich black gumbo soil that fostered out to be washed down the gutters and through the culverts under roads by rainwater rushing with such force that it rose back into the air in a liquid rainbow with pressure enough to wash the black from beneath our toes.” ‘Summer Evenings Turn to Fall’ opens with “Back when we drank summer through paper soda straws,”
‘Zippy’ was a treasured family pet. “All animal stories end more quickly than we would wish them to. With their shorter life span, it is inevitable. Some stories end with a shoebox lined with dandelion chains, some with a dead goldfish flushed down a toilet, others by watching a grown cottontail disappear into an alfalfa field, but Zippy’s story just faded away without an ending. Like the stories of people we lose touch with. Like the stories of people who move on in life. Like the stories of people who pass from being friends into being just another story in our lives.” This is one example of Judy’s philosophical insights.
‘She’ is a piece in tribute to Judy’s mother, as is this poem in Scrabble tiles.
It was her mother in particular whose writing contributed to her style of poetry. Judy earned her Masters degree in creative writing from the University of Wyoming, but before that came her mother, “like a beautiful uncut gem.”
Dykstra-Brown acknowledges that she carries both parents inside her, and ‘Near’ pays the same tribute to her father.
(Please note that the pages shown in this review are just excerpts and not the entire poems.) This book is available HERE on Amazon
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Published 9 March 2026By derrickjknight
Categorised as BooksTagged Judy Dykstra-Brown
60 comments
Thanks for the review, Derrick.
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- derrickjknight
Much appreciated, Rosaliene
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Judy is a talented poet and storyteller. I can relate to her statement, “I wished I’d asked more questions.”
I lived with both my parents, yet I know so very little about my father’s family and his life before us.
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- derrickjknight
Thank you so much, Sue
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It looks like a beautiful book, Derrick!
Thanks for this great review
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- derrickjknight
Much appreciated, Luisa
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You are truly welcome
It was a pleasure
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A lovely and well-written review, Derrick. Judy should be very pleased.
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- derrickjknight
Thank you very much, Merril
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I am, Merril. Just read his review and I am actually in tears. Must be my age, huh? ;o)
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- derrickjknight
Thank you both very much
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She uses word very lovingly, Nice.
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- derrickjknight
Thank you very much, Pat
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Thanks from me, too, Pat. Derrick’s review reads like poetry as well.
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Great to see a ‘poet’ receiving such a wonderful review. A very enjoyable read, derrick
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- derrickjknight
Thank you very much, Ivor
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I love the old photos. We need this kind of heartwarming, down to earth simplicity in our lives… like your blog.
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- derrickjknight
Thank you so much, JoAnna
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If you want to read more, the book is available on Amazon in print and ebook, Joanna. Thanks for your comment.
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Thanks. I’ll check it out.
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Very inspiring in all sorts of shapes and forms
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- derrickjknight
Thank you very much, Sylvie
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A book after my own heart. It sounds like a delightful read
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- derrickjknight
Yes. Thanks very much, Anne
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It is available on Amazon, Anne.
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A heartwarming review, Derrick, of a heart-touching book…reading what you shared here engaged all of my senses and ignited my emotions. I love when a writer/author has a gift in doing all of that. This brought back memories from my own childhood.
Thank you and (((HUGS)))) to you and Jackie!!
Thank you and (((HUGS))) to Judy!
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- derrickjknight
Thank you very much from each of us, Carolyn XX
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Hugs to you, Carolyn. As I’ve mentioned above, the book is available on Amazon. If you read it, I’d love to hear your comments as well.
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Derrick, thank you for this beautiful and thoughtful introduction to Judy’s unique and inspiring book. The writing is wonderful, I love the inclusion of the photos and what a special tribute to her parents and life!
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- derrickjknight
Thank you so much, Annika
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Thanks, Annika. https://judydykstrabrown.com
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Nice review Derrick.
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Oh, lovely! And how different was the landscape of her childhood compared with the landscape of my childhood was. Same country. Very different environments.
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- derrickjknight
Thank you very much, Laurie
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Thanks for your response. Where did you grow up, Laurie? You can answer at https://judydykstrabrown.com
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Judy should be pleased with your review, Derrick. Well done.
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- derrickjknight
Thank you very much, Eugi
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You’re welcome, Derrick.
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The poem tiles are nicely played.
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- derrickjknight
Thanks very much, Crystal
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The gentle, conversational tone of your overview mirrors the intimacy of the memoir it discusses. One cannot help but feel the emotional weight of the poetic stories, which linger like shared memories. The vivid reflections of a three-year-old in The Church Purse could easily have been my own while visiting a temple in the early years of my childhood.
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- derrickjknight
Thank you so much, Uma
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So happy that you identified with the poem, Uma. Read your comment on Derrick’s blog. Here, if you are interested, is a link to my daily blog: https://judydykstrabrown.com
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I look forward to visiting your blog and following your posts.
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Pleased to have you aboard. You can also read about all my books on Amazon if you are interested..And I’m just revamping my pages on the blog to give links to all that info, interviews and reviews. A big job and not my favorite writing activity. A friend is helping.
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A wonderful review for an interesting book!
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- derrickjknight
Thank you very much, Riba
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An excellent review, Derrick, and thank you for the introduction to Judy Dykstra-Brown.
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- derrickjknight
Thank you very much, Lavinia. Judy is an excellent blogger
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Hi Lavinia. Read your comment on Derrick’s blog. Here, if you are interested, is a link to my daily blog: https://judydykstrabrown.com
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Thank you, Judy!
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A wonderful and comprehensive review of a delightful sounding book. Derrick
- derrickjknight
Thank you very much, Robbie
How lovely!
- derrickjknight
Thank you very much, Sheree
Unbelievably my parents had a similar dog like that on the mantelpiece.
- derrickjknight
Amazing. Thank you very much, Gary
Really? And did the head come off and the tongue was a handle of the spoon? Do you know where they got it? I’ve never seen another one but I still have this one…It is one of the few things I brought with me to Mexico. https://judydykstrabrown.com
I’m very grateful to Derrick for taking the time to read my memoirs. Thanks to you for reading his comments.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 