What the Dog Said

January 2, 2012
This combination grief novel, mystery, and talking dog story grew out of an idea frequent collaborators Reisfeld and Gilmour (the Twitches series) were developing before Gilmour’s death in 2009. The tale bridges the real and the fanciful as 13-year-old Grace tries to make sense of the shooting death of her detective father. Grace is also grappling with guilt that her father was caught in the crossfire because he left work early to attend her softball tryouts. When her self-absorbed older sister offers to train Rex, a rambunctious shelter puppy, as a service dog, Grace ends up stepping in to do the work. She’s amazed and alarmed when Rex talks to her (“Dogs don’t talk. Only crazy people think they do”), but his wise, often funny comments help her heal and provide a reassuring echo of her father’s voice. Grace’s search for the truth about the shooting gives the novel an edge; her discovery assuages her guilt and brings her a bittersweet peace. Even with a talking dog, Reisfeld’s novel is moored by believable characters, dialogue, and emotions. Ages 10–14.

January 1, 2012
A talking service-dog–in-training may relieve 13-year-old Grace's crushing grief after her father's death. It's a project Grace's older sister Regan has begun merely to enhance her college applications. After choosing a dog from the animal shelter, she enrolls it in service-dog training. Grace, forced to help, naturally selects the rangy mutt, Rex, that shouts, "Pick me!" in a voice only she can hear. Rex insinuates himself into her life, an aimless existence since her father, a police officer, was murdered in an unsolved shooting six months earlier. Grace has dropped out of her own life, failing school and shutting out her friends. When a young gang follower Grace suspects was involved in the shooting joins the dog training class, she takes the opportunity to investigate and finds out--quite a bit too easily--who killed her father. Reisfeld resorts to telling rather than showing too often: "I needed to uncoil the knot of loss inside me, to unlock the dark cell I'd been living in since Dad died," for example, resulting in a voice that never rings quite true. Other characters, too, seem trite, with the best voice being that of the enthusiastically inquisitive dog, leaving this an imaginative but not fully realized concept. This dog tale will, nonetheless, appeal to animal lovers, who may "hear" their pets' voices just as clearly. (Fantasy. 10-14)

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March 1, 2012

Gr 5-8-Grace is still reeling from her dad's death. A police officer who worked with troubled youth, he was killed in a drive-by and the shooter has never been caught. Because she has become increasingly withdrawn, Grace is roped into her older sister's plot to train a service dog, and that's when she meets Rex, a shelter dog that talks to her. She's pretty sure she's not crazy, but before long she finds herself taking advice from the mutt, which helps her reconnect with friends and grow closer to her sister. In the dog-training classes, she meets JJ, who admits to the police that he was in the car when Officer Abernathy was killed, but he won't tell who actually fired the shot for fear of his own life. In the end, Grace is able to convince JJ to talk, but one has to wonder about his safety as he has already been threatened by the gang he has fallen in with. Animal lovers will relish the details about training service dogs, readers will follow Grace's determination to have her father's killer brought to justice, and all will find her hard-won healing inspiring.-Laurie Slagenwhite Walters, Peachtree Montessori International, Ann Arbor, MI

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