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The review below is the same one I am putting in for No Better Friend which is another telling of the same story on the dog Judy who lived through a Japanese Prison during WWII.

The story of Judy in WWII is the greatest story of a dog in all of history. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has a different opinion. I read of the story in the book, Judy: A Dog In A Million by Damien Lewis. It became in the top 5 favorite of my 200 or so books on dogs I have read so far. Then I heard about another book on the same dog, No Better Friend: One Man, One Dog, and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage and Survival in WWII, by Robert Weintraub.

At first I accidently got the youth version of No Better Friend, so I held out reading until I got the normal version.

Because I LOVED Damien Lewis's book, I chose to read both books at the same time, one chapter or part of the story in one, and then a chapter in the other. So now I have my answers on which I liked better.

First, the story of Judy is amazing no matter which version you read. And overall, they don't contradict each other except for some minor details. There is differences in the order of when some details are told, like when discussing details on how POW's would sabotage the railway with one book telling it early in the story and the other telling it later. So there is some difference in timing, and details added to one or the other, but overall, the books follow each other tit for tat.

The major difference is that No Better Friend has more. The book has more pages and in my versions of the books, smaller print. While in the main story of Judy that are very close in the level of detail until the end, in No Better Friend there is a lot more history told of the stories of those who intersect with Judy. There is more background of what was happening in the greater theater of war in the Pacific. In Judy, I didn't feel the two year gap from when she was a mascot on a gunboat in China when Japan attacked the Chinese, to when Frank and Judy had to flee Singapore when the Japanese attacked there. The additional details really opened up the story to a larger scale and a greater understanding.

The one area that No Better Friend especially had over on the story of Judy was at the end. No Better friend captured a lot more of the amazing days when the POW's were rescued. Then a lot more of the why and what when Frank and Judy moved to Africa. Then finished up the story of Frank until the end of his life.

There are some who prefer less details on the history. I saw one reader downgrade this book because they didn't like the expanse of historical details. That same person mentioned they didn't like the anthropomorphism attributed to Judy. First, I would say there was more of that in Judy then in No Better Friend. Second, for those of us around dogs, you get a feeling of what they are thinking from their behavior, and dogs behavior can be pretty darn noble as demonstrated where Judy found ways to save people from being beaten to death in the book.

In short, both Judy and No Better Friend are great books. If you want less overall historical details read Judy or probably the youth version of No Better friend. If you have read Judy, you will still enjoy reading the other. If you really want the full dose of a great story, I would recommend reading both of them side by side as I did. I did not find it repetitive but found it just doubled my enjoyment of a amazing, fantastic story, which as I have said before is the story of the most amazing dog that ever lived.