My Brother the Dog (review)

Mattie's "an average 14-year-old girl," driven crazy by her four-year-old brother, Donny, and her parents' indulgence of his quirks, especially his latest conviction that he's a dog. Since Mattie's summer schedule includes taking care of Donny while her parents are both working, she's forced to publicly lead Donny around on his leash and put up with his barking instead of speaking in response, and while this may amuse Mattie's best friend, Livvy, Mattie's sick of it. It's especially embarrassing because she's long had a crush on Livvy's older brother, Nathan, and Nathan has actually begun to return Mattie's interest, but sibling issues trouble even that happy development: Livvy's jealous of her friend's romantic fortune, and Donny's nagging cold turns into more serious illness. That's a fair amount of event for a modest book, but Mattie's narration effectively renders the experience a cohesive and accessible one; the tonal range from sarcastic to tremulous to plaintive is absolutely believable. Donny's human speech is cutesified but fortunately fairly rare, and his dogdom is authentic even in its protractedness, as is Mattie's massive annoyance with same; the book is particularly clever in parallel examination of sibling relationships, with both sets of siblings having some legitimate cause for complaint and both taking it way overboard. The book wisely acknowledges that Mattie's parents have been inconsistent in their expectations for her responsibility—they haven't explained to her why the family plans had to change and her summer become dominated by child-care duties—and the successful outcome of a friend's-brother crush is a fantasy scenario played out with delicious plausibility. This will strike a chord with middle-schoolers experiencing their own sibling issues and romantic yearnings.