Boy and Dog

Regular readers of this blog, and anyone who has ever spent more than 5 minutes with me in real life, will know that I love dogs.  So when I saw one of the Reading Olympic's books had a dog on the cover, I knew I would probably like it.

Elvis and the Underdogs by Jenny Lee is a fun twist on the 'boy meets dog' story.  You see Benji isn't your normal boy.  He was born premature, is extremely accident prone, and he has a tendency to faint when under stress.  He misses a lot of school due to various illnesses so he tries to make himself scarce when he is at school. But more than that he is exceptionally smart and quick-witted (though half the time he doesn't realize he's being funny).  Just listen to how he describes the school bully Billy Thompson.

"Billy Thompson is my archnemesis.  The Lord Voldemort to my Harry Potter, the Tom to my Jerry, the Lex Luthor to my Superman, the Captain Hook to my Peter Pan, the walnuts to my brownies. (I'm allergic to all nuts, but walnuts especially, and seriously it makes no sense to add them to brownies anyway.  They're perfect just the way they are.)" 

One day Benji has an "episode" at school, which his doctors suspect was a mild seizure.  Until they can determine what's causing the seizures (and thus prevent another from happening) Benji has two options, wear a helmet or get a therapy dog.

Obviously therapy dog wins out and that's how Benji ends up with Elvis-a Newfoundland (aka a dog the size of a horse).  But Elvis' size is just the beginning.  He can talk!  Well, at least Benji can hear/understand him, everyone else...not so much.  When you bring an enormous talking dog to school it's kind hard to make yourself scarce.  That's when things really get interesting.

Finding a pack...that's kids stuff.