Excerpt from Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Mattie and Ella sat on the floor in front of the fireplace, eating crackers, building a castle, still waiting for Harry. Their aging Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Marjorie, lay beside them. She had soulful brown eyes and a creamy white coat dappled with reddish-brown. She was old and sick. "Marjorie," Mattie said, "will you pay for an exterminator?" Like the Little Red Hen trying to get someone to help her with the wheat.

From Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott, Copyright © October 2002, Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Putnam, Inc., used by permission.