Walkin' the Dog

December 4, 2023
Lynch (the Special Forces series) explores elements of socioeconomic disparity and anxiety in this hopeful and humorous story of disparate families, friends, and the dogs they care for. The stress surrounding 13-year-old Louis’s fast-approaching entry into public high school after years of being homeschooled weighs heavy on him, especially since he’s content to keep up his quiet loner routine in the sleepy coastal New England town where his father pilots a commercial fishing boat. Dealing with his powder keg older brother and overbearing younger sister while desperately missing activist Ma as she receives inpatient treatment at a psychiatric hospital intensifies matters. But when Dad compels him to sit for a neighbor’s smelly, needy pooch, Louis finds himself running a busy dog-walking enterprise, an endeavor that supplies him the courage to comfort Ma; reconnect with a kind, Haitian family acquaintance; and help a new harmonica-playing friend who’s dealing with a difficult homelife. Lynch infuses Louis’s narration with a breezy, sometimes mature vernacular, crisp wit, and powerful emotions surrounding the intense joy, sorrow, and wisdom that come with canine companionship. Louis and his family read as white. Ages 8–12.

January 1, 2024
A boy launches a lucrative business walking his neighbors' dogs in order to help his family financially and to cope with big changes in his life. After reluctantly looking after Amos, his family friend's dog, 13-year-old Louis realizes he can turn a profit through dog care. He's anxious about starting high school in the fall after years of home schooling and isolation from kids his own age. His dread is compounded by his family's economic struggles in the wake of his mother's being injured at work, losing her job, and going to an inpatient program for painkiller addiction. The stress of this separation also strains Louis' relationship with Ike, his older brother, and Louis uses sarcasm and silence to avoid talking about family issues with his stoic fisherman dad and 11-months-younger sister, Faye. His dog-walking business, however, unexpectedly helps him make new friends among the neighborhood kids, and Louis begins to grow as a person and nurture new relationships, including a first love. Louis, who reads white, overcomes his hopelessness, and the novel explores how children experiencing stressful home lives often hide their problems and struggle alone. The story illustrates the central importance of building community and friendships as a key to surviving and overcoming difficult times. There's also plenty of engaging canine content that will appeal to animal lovers. Without sugarcoating crises, tenderly underscores how love and trust can shepherd lost kids toward hopeful futures. (Fiction. 10-13)

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February 1, 2024
Grades 5-8 *Starred Review* Lynch, master of the "show, don't tell" school of writing, goes to the dogs in a story lit up by examples of kindness, empathy, and people (and pooches!) helping people over rough spots in their lives. Louis is just weeks from starting high school after years of homeschooling, and his mom has been worrisomely slow to come home from rehab for an addiction to painkillers. Still, his expanding dog-walking business brings a little cash plus contact with two prospective schoolmates, Agatha and Cyrus, who prove happily willing to batter away at both of his anxieties. Along with the generally buoyant tone, the cast is really a strength here, being well stocked with memorable characters of the two-, four-, and yes, three-legged sorts. Most notably, once Agatha and Faye (Louis' strong-minded little sister) get together, Louis is surrounded by girls who repeatedly prove capable of winding him up with the greatest of ease--and as for the dogs, well, "all dogs are magical," as Cy rightly puts it, and even readers with no particular affinity for them will be spellbound. Following no few highs and lows, summer's end brings both a joyful homecoming and a heady pre-term orientation event that makes high school look like a glittering promised land of personal and educational opportunities. That's not a bad way to end this funny, fetching tale.

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Starred review from October 25, 2024

Gr 5-9-In his family, Louis is known as the "inactivist" who does not want to be involved with anyone or anything. He and his younger sister Faye have been homeschooled for years but, with his mother staying at a residential treatment facility for addiction, his father has decided that Louis will start public high school. His father tries to keep the family afloat, but he is dealing with his own issues, as well. Though younger than Louis, Faye has stepped into a motherly role while their mother stays at the Knoll. Their big brother Ike is a police cadet; Louis has a love-hate relationship with Ike, and Ike has a hate relationship with almost everyone. Lynch's skill at portraying complex family interactions extends to friendships as well. Louis is happily friendless and unbound by any societal ties apart from his nuclear family but, with his mother's urging and his father's desperate need, reaches out to the owner of the neighborhood's stinky dog and surprises everyone by quickly growing a successful dog-walking business. Not only does Louis become an entrepreneur, he makes two very important friends, Agatha and Cy, and he also widens his world and accepts that he must be an active part of life. Lynch's work is lyrical and compelling, but the ending feels a bit rushed. Due to mentions of assault and some rough language, the recommended age level for readers is middle school and up. VERDICT A marvelous modern family story. Readers who enjoy novels of animals and resilience like L.M. Elliott's Bea and the New Deal Horse will inhale Lynch's latest.-Susan Catlett

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