Right over here! Look this way! Over here! TWEET! You looking? Yeah, so right over we've got ourselves a Patrick Jennings fan. Yup. Patrick Jennings. The guy who wrote that fantastic We Can't All Be Rattlesnakes, along with approximately a hundred other books. You've read him, right? No? Well that's fine with me. It's when you discover this cool underground band, and you get to be their biggest fan all by yourself. It's great. You walk around with this knowledge in your head of, "I am into something incredible that only I know about." That's how it is with Patrick Jennings and me. Problem is, I keep recommending his books to the kids in my library. And if I keep this up, I may end up unexpectedly creating a whole host of Jennings fans. Then he'll get hugely popular and go mainstream and I'll have to share him with the rest of the world. After all, he's a fantastic author who writes primarily animal books (not many folks do that these days, y'know) and who's latest title Guinea Dog is just about the most fun you can get out of a book about a guinea pig with ambitions.

"My dream of a dog died then and there. Instead, I was the proud owner/caretaker of a plump, punk guinea sow. , yippee." Rufus is a pretty easy guy to figure out. He wants a dog. A dog is all his wants, in fact. His father, unfortunately, is dead set against this idea, and what Rufus's dad says goes. That is, until the day Rufus's mom brings home a guinea pig as a kind of compromise. Rufus is not impressed, nor is his dad, but this guinea pig, dubbed Fido, is hardly normal. She pants. She fetches. She plays dead on command. And ever so slowly, while dealing with some best friend issues at school, Rufus starts to see the advantages to having a pet that isn't exactly everyone else's.

Now the dialogue in this book is nothing short of divine. Snarky kids are not easy to write. Not so as they sound real kids anyway. And Jennings has created a particularly smart alecky type of kid. Fortunately he's old enough to believably come up with the lines put in his mouth. Some of my favorites include the moment when Fido starts making too much noise and Rufus's dad asks what the racket is. "I pointed at Fido. `Why, it's the quiet, clean pet Mom bought me'." I that Jennings feels no need to telegraph that line by inserting an "I said sarcastically". He shows, and doesn't tell, this author. In terms of descriptions Rufus says of himself that he has, "a neck that could stop growing any time without any complaint from me." He says of his father, "That's what Dad can do to you. He can make you forget you have a chubby rat in a sack on your back." And he later mentions that since he's a better staller than a liar, "Maybe one day I'll write my own book: The Complete Dork's Guide to Hemming and Hawing."

It's interesting to see where Jennings puts his point of view in his stories. In the aforementioned We Can't All Be Rattlesnakes the hero of the book was Crusher, a snake. She was inclined to view the world with a particularly snakey take. Guinea Dog, in contrast, is entirely from Rufus (the boy's) point of view. The guinea pig is left as a kind of a mysterious entity. Her thoughts are her own, hidden from human understanding. Jennings also isn't afraid of creating female animals in his books. The heroine of We Can't All Be Rattlesnakes was a lady snake. In this book Fido is a female guinea pig (dog). I'm sure you could make all kinds of interesting psychological interpretations of what a boy/female pet pairing really means, but all I care is that we're getting some strong girl characters in our kids' books. Even if those girls do happen to be covered in scales and fur.

The little details are what I best of all, though. We have finally gotten to the point in children's literature where parents have jobs editing golf online magazines from home. So that was a realistic, not to say contemporary, detail that I appreciated. I also loved that Rufus's hobby was collecting Scrabble tiles.

Not that there weren't a couple moments that didn't entirely gel with the rest of the book. For example, there was a time when I was confused about Rufus's devotion to his new pet. One minute he's dead set against having Fido adopted by a girl in his class. Next minute he's saying, "I didn't want them - especially Mom - to have any extra reasons to want to keep her [the guinea pig:]." It didn't happen very often, but once in a while I was confused.

The book would actually pair bee-autifully with Wishworks Inc. by Stephanie Tolan. In that early chapter book too a boy wants a beautiful, strong, independent dog of his own... and ends up with an unexpected pet instead. At least you can say that Rufus got himself a better behaved breed of dog-wannabe. And since 2010 is the year for good guinea pig-related literature, you might also pair it with Hamster and Cheese by Colleen AF Venable. That female guinea pig has more of a bedhead hairdo, however, while Fido's hair is described as having a punk rock look.

Guinea Dog does not contain a big story arc, all things considered. That is fine. Not every book has to include an epic quest or enormous fights between characters. Jennings thinks that we'll be content with this tale of a boy trying to understand both his best friend and his new pet, and he's right. We really are content with that. We're content because the writing is strong, the characters a lot of fun, and the story just plain enjoyable. You don't need to be a fan of guinea pigs to enjoy this book. Heck, you don't need to be a fan of dogs either for that matter. All you need to be a fan of is fun books for kids. Books that everyone can enjoy. Consider this a great readaloud for classes, or for kids who are comfortable with chapter book but are scared of 200+ page tomes. There's a little bit of something everyone can enjoy in this newest Jennings number.

Ages 7-11 4 s1 comment Book Bunny3

This book is....frustrating.
It's not bad, it's not great, but it has some serious issues.
I'm a guinea pig owner and a school librarian, I was curious to see if this book was good enough to work with for a project or anything, but the terrible physical treatment of the guinea pig ruins it. She gets tossed around, ignored, and shoved in backpacks for hours at a time with no food or water.

Even the way the book treats it as a "good" thing when the guinea pig acts a dog rubs me the wrong way. I feel that's going to set some unrealistic expectations for kids. Guinea pigs are a challenging pet that are rewarding for their unique characteristics. They are nothing dogs, should not be treated dogs, and shouldn't be expected to act dogs! Even though the book establishes that Fido the guinea pig is weird for acting a dog, it doesn't make it clear that much of what she does is literally physically impossible. Or that other events would kill a real guinea pig if they happened in real life! Fiction is fiction and this book isn't worth censoring, but I feel I'd be tempted to add a million "don't try this at home" stickers to random paragraphs in this book if I had it in my library. So I probably won't add it any time soon.

If this book makes a kid ask for a guinea pig, but then it doesn't act a dog, I worry a kid might be disappointed and end up neglecting it. Soooo many end up in shelters because parents buy them for kids as a dog replacement, but they lose interest and then the parent gets stuck cleaning up after it! Parents, either get your child the dog, or don't. Small animal substitutions never work out. I say this as someone that had a guinea pig-themed wedding with my guinea pig-obsessed partner. Don't get children guinea pigs unless they are ready and willing to take care of them, and you're ready and willing to step up if they don't.

The writing is fine, the characters are a little annoying but fine. Well, except for the dad. He needs serious therapy. The main character makes some personal growth and some moral lessons are spelled out directly. But there's some bad behavior with pet treatment that a child might replicate without knowing better.4 s Matthew Ochal341 9

I… uh… dont ask…audiobook-d4 s T Crockett766 5

I wanted to this book. In the beginning the narrator's observations are pretty funny and it has the usual kid's perspective that adults are nuts.

As the book goes on, it shows some truly unacceptable behavior as normal. The main character repeatedly puts his guinea pig in his backpack (just a normal one, no modifications to allow fresh air in) for hours without food or water. He admits the animal pees and poops in the bag but never washes it and never thinks, gee, it might not be good for an animal to be in a small enclosed space covered in feces without food, water or fresh air for hours. There's one scene where the boy "tosses" the bag with the guinea pig in it three times! Would any of us read a book where a puppy was treated this way?

I realize that the author's depictions of the father menacing his son at the doorway after school are probably meant to be over the top to show the child's perspective, but both the child and the mother cower when the father enters a room. They hide their personalities and give in to the father's wishes. The father dismisses the mother's opinions and treats her as a silly woman.

The mother does poke fun at the father's grumpiness and tells the son to make allowances because the father is stressed. That would be fine, normal even, if she and the son didn't appear scared to upset the father. The mother repeatedly tries to placate the father a person in an emotionally abusive relationship.

My last criticism is what made me give up on the book 65% through. Out of no where the author starts giving the main character inner monologues full of the wonder of life and the importance of not judging anyone by their exterior. There's no gradual growth in the character, he is just suddenly rhapsodizing over cliches. The tone of the inner monologue switches entirely as if Rufus were taken over by an alien that thinks an after school special from the 80s. Zero subtlety. audio-book middle-readers-8-12yrs3 s Judy Desetti1,336 25

I enjoyed this title. It will make a good read read aloud. I was excited to see that this is the same author that wrote We Can't All Be Rattlesnakes which was a hilarious title! Guinea Dog is about the theme of a child wanting a dog as a pet and the parent saying NO. I personally have been there and understand the intense desire to get a dog to love and play with. Rufus, my dad said absolutely not! This was a wonderful fantasy about what happens if the boy gets a guinea pig that does exactly what a dog would do. This one did not live up to the same level as We Can't All Be Rattlesnakes but it will be fun for kids in grades 3-5.

I would not be surprised to find this one winning the WAW award for KS this year.

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award-winners z-school-gr-3-4-53 s Tal307 14

i expected a story about a boy and his "dog". it was less about that and more about ... differences? i guess so. there was that lesson of you have to look on the inside instead of judging things by the outside, so that was good. i think there wasn't enough story about the title and main topic of the book. it is possible that there wouldn't be much of a story if they stuck to that though. what i did not was the lack of respect often through the book. i understand kids being hard on their parents and their looks and all, but i think that was taken a little too far. i mean, the kid punched his mom in the arm once! on the other side, towards the end of the book, the dad fussed at the boy about his tone of voice. i don't know. it wasn't as good as i expected, but it wasn't a bad book either. 3 s Kim Patton350 20

Delightful book about a boy named Rufus who wants a dog desperately. When his mom buys him a guinea pig instead, he is deeply disappointed and wants to return the animal. Fido, the guinea pig, starts acting so much a dog, though, Rufus gives him a chance. Envy of a friend--from his dog to his normal house & normal family--is a theme that many kids will relate to. books-for-boys3 s Lisa1,549 1 follower

Listened to this on a road trip with the whole family and we all really enjoyed it! Many laugh out loud moments and teaches good lessons. We thought it was especially funny because the dad and son in the story act a lot the dad and son in our family.
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