by Art Corriveau
ages: 11+
First sentence: “We have this dog now.”
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Nicky Flynn is not a happy camper. He’s not quite 12 years old, but his life the last few months has been turned completely and totally upside down. His parents split up, his mom dragged him away from his comfortable house, his good school, and landed in Charlestown, a not-so-prosperous area of Boston. She’s unreliable, completely worn out from her job as a secretary, and Nicky suspects that she’s not letting him see his dad. To top it off, on a whim she brought home this German Shepard, Reggie, who was a former seeing eye dog. Since his mother isn’t showing any interest in taking care of the dog, it’s just another thing Nicky has to do.

And yet, as Nicky starts walking Reggie around, he discovers that Reggie has a past, and that that past is as bit of a mystery, and through a lot of bumps and scrapes, figures out that maybe, just maybe, Reggie is the only living being he can count on in this life. Sometimes, really, the dog is your best friend. If you can only realize it in time.

It’s one of those books where the majority of adults are complete basket cases. Nicky’s not terribly sympathetic, either: he’s angry and has a temper as well as a bit of a lying problem. And yet, because the adults are so much worse, it’s quite easy to sympathize with Nicky: he is that way just because everything around him is falling apart. It’s a therapeutic book, one that looks at the aftermath of a messy divorce and sees not the roses but the thorns for most of the story. And yet, it’s depressing: there’s a lot of hope in the book (Hooray for a dog book where the dog doesn’t die!), and the relationship between Nicky and Reggie is quite wonderful (as far as dog-human relationships go).

In the end, in spite of the adults I wanted to scream at, an enjoyable book.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)