Korman, Gordon. No More Dead Dogs. New York: Hyperion for Children, 2000. Print.
Summary
"... the dog always dies. Go to the library and pick out a book with an award sticker and a dog on the cover. Trust me, that dog is going down."
So says football player Wallace Wallace to his eighth grade English teacher about the assigned material, Old shep, My Pal, who in return gives Wallace detention until he writes a "proper" report. The trouble is, Wallace can't lie and that's really how he feels, so he's left with nothing to do after school then hang around the drama club, and it just so happens that their latest production in a dramatization of Old Shep written by the teacher. Wallace gives the teacher advice to improve the play, winning the hearts of the drama club while horrifying the drama club president, Julia Roberts-wannabe Rachel Turner. Can Wallace Wallace find out who's sabotaging the play and finally get his report written?
My Impressions
That quote above made me know I had to get the book right away, having just read Sounder for a class module on Newbery winners a few weeks before. It was a very clever premise, but the execution didn't quite follow through. Still, it's very funny and the main characters are very appealing (I especially loved the little sub-plot about the English teacher finding his inner rock star), making it a very light and entertaining read for middle-schoolers.
What Other Reviewers Said
This was one of the funniest books I have ever read! The main character, Wallace, an eighth grader and a football player, is well known for never telling a lie. His English teacher, Mr. Fogelman, assigns the class to write a book review of his favorite book, Old Shep, My Pal (1951). Wallace doesn't lie but says he thinks the book is awful; besides, you know that the dog will die before starting page one "because the dog always dies." This makes Mr. Fogelman angry and he gives Wallace a detention. Wallace is to write and turn in a good review. Detention ends up meaning that Wallace cannot play or practice football until the proper "review" is written, and the detention must be served with the drama club, which is directed by Mr. Fogelman. Not only is Wallace extremely honest, he is very stubborn. The next review he writes is still not acceptable, so he must continue coming to the drama club practices as part of his "detention." Middle school kids will enjoy this book because it is so typical of their language, actions, and ideas. It would make a good book to read aloud to a class. Recommended. (1)
Gordon Korman's multigenre novel (part mystery, romance, epistolary fiction, and drama) No More Dead Dogs traces the unwonted directorial debut of its eighth-grade protagonist Wallace Wallace. After being suspended from the football team as punishment for writing a scathing review of his English teacher's favorite childhood book Old Shep, My Pal, the boy with a truth-telling fetish must learn to play politics or kiss his athletic career good-bye.... The joke upon which the title turns is Wallace's unhappy realization of a particular leitmotif in American literature: the sacrifice of countless dogs (e.g., Old Yeller, Sounder, Bristle Face). This becomes a metaphor for the premature loss of innocence, which the drama kids (believing they have intuited the source of Wallace's angst) chant in unison at rehearsal: "No more dead dogs." The fact is, while the book packs plot, it lacks witty follow-through of this amusing premise. We have no idea why Wallace initially champions the dog cause (other than a refusal to cater to the taste of his teacher); in fact, the book has nothing to do with the title theme whatever. Instead, No More Dead Dogs refocuses its attention on the travails of the president of the drama club, Rachel Turner, as she struggles to preserve the authority and artistic integrity of her theatrical mentor, Mr. Fogelman. Rachel, incidentally, is a girl with a bizarre fixation on Julia Roberts who writes obsessively to the star for counsel. There are other problems with No More Dead Dogs. The book is filled with jokes aimed at an adult audience rather than one comprised of middle schoolers (e.g., one character spews a bountiful supply of mixed metaphors that the author must explain, uncommon as they are in the parlance of kids: "It's the icing on the gravy," "by any stretch of the means," "If the cake fits, eat it"). These are jokes that desperately wish to be funny but the book produces only one that would be considered genuinely amusing to its demographic. Wallace Wallace is relentlessly pursued throughout the story by a Mephistopheles-like ex-best friend named Cavanaugh who refers to the protagonist repeatedly as "Jackass Jackass." Even as I write that, I laugh--in a juvenile, David Spade sort of way. In my opinion, No More Dead Dogs had serious potential to be a much better book than the writing produced. - S. Graber. (2)
Suggested Activity
Have kids share endings of books or movies they didn't like. How would they change it? Have them write or act out their all-new "alternate ending."
Other Citations
(1) Clarke, Jo. "No More Dead Dogs (Book Review)." Book Report 19.5 (2001): 60. Computer Source. EBSCO. Web. 10 Oct. 2010.
(2) Blasingame, James, et al. "Books for adolescents." Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 46.2 (2002): 178. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 10 Oct. 2010.
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