Galley Talk

Leslie Hawkins, owner, Spellbound Children's Bookshop in Asheville, N.C.

By Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 4/17/2006

My Brother the Dog by Kim Williams-Justesen [Tanglewood Press, June] is a quick read—it's light and breezy in tone and would be a great summer read for girls 10 and up. The narrator, 14-year-old Mattie, shares her trials and tribulations getting through the last two weeks of summer vacation. Her parents have been making her babysit her little brother almost every day, leaving her no time to herself, and it's made all the more humiliating by the fact that little Donny thinks he's a dog. She has to walk him (on a leash) everywhere she goes, including the home of her best friend Livvy (and Livvy's dreamy older brother). The book touches on some more serious topics in Mattie's life, such as nearly losing her best friend over a boy, and how it sometimes takes a crisis to make you appreciate your family. But these are all woven in lightly with the mini-dramas of day-to-day life.