Josh Chapnick

May 9 2011

5:32 PM

Dear ORC,

I am currently reading Boys Are Dogs by Leslie Margolis.

This book is about a girl named Annabelle who comes home from summer camp and her and her mom are moving into the mom’s boyfriend’s house that Annabelle calls Dweeble. Dweeble and Annabelle’s mom get Annabelle a puppy that Dweeble temporarily named stripe because he has spots. Annabelle also had to go to a new school called Birchwood Middle School. All of the boys at Birchwood are mean to Annabelle and they have also made up lots of mean nicknames like “Spamabelle” and “Spazabelle.” In Annabelle’s language arts class there is a boy sitting behind her named Tobias and he would sit there and kick her chair for the whole class but Annabelle didn’t say anything. After a couple of days of the boys driving Annabelle crazy Annabelle had figured out that boys are like dogs and she could train using the training manual that came with her dog that is temporarily named Stripe by Dweeble. Annabelle goes home that day and starts preparing the dog-training manual for the boys by changing everything to make sense.

One part of the book that surprised me is that one day when Tobias kicked Annabelle’s chair during class she tried out her boy training and acted like a dominant dog and yelled “STOP KICKING MY CHAIR” as if she would order Stripe to do something like sit. I wouldn’t yell in the middle of class like that for two reasons. First, I would be scared to yell at someone else if they annoyed me in class because they might hurt me. Second, I would be worried that I might get in big trouble from the teacher because I was disrupting the class when the teacher is clearly trying to address a lesson.

I am close to finishing Boys Are Dogs and it is one of the best books I have ever read. I am amazed at how Annabelle thinks she can make boys act how she wants them to act with a dog-training book. I would have never thought of that idea. I would recommend this book to anyone who like sort of funny books and also likes books that are fun to read. I think that Leslie Margolis is a great author and I enjoy reading her books.

Keep enjoying reading!

Sincerely,

Josh