A Different Dog by Paul Jennings and Geoff Kelly

A Different Dog by Paul Jennings and Geoff Kelly
Buy A Different Dog by Paul Jennings and Geoff Kelly at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Dyslexia Friendly
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: I did find a hiccup or three here to make me question its suitability for a dyslexia-friendly programme, but I also found a really distinctive book that will definitely stay in the mind.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 96	Date: February 2018
Publisher: Old Barn Books
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 9781910646427
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Our hero is a boy, whose name we never learn. We know what he wants in life – with his mother exceedingly poor, and even his bed burnt to keep the two of them warm, he wants the prize offered by a down-a-mountain-and-back-up-and-down-again foot race. Winning the race and the large purse would also give him more status in the eyes of those kids that bully him, and it might even give him a voice – for he is almost mute. We quickly learn he never talks back to anyone, whatever the motivation, and can only speak aloud to himself – and, so it turns out, to a dog he rescues from a bad road accident he finds on his way up the hill to the start line…

It is a bit of a strange conceit, having a character that can only talk when he's alone, yet dragging the lad's thoughts out into the open for us to hear, but in these pages it really works. It never struck me that the boy's voice was there for exposition, but instead served as accurate reflection of his character, and he only ever enunciated what he would actually be saying. This, then, is a very valid presentation of someone with a pretty rare 'disability'.

But there is still a strange feel to the story. Without having read that this was set in Australia, I had no idea what was going on at first. The lad wakes under a light globe – I think it means bulb; a neighbour is aiming pot shots at corellas and they are birds I've never heard of. The race is never stated as an actual fun run – by this stage I thought we were in some weird, alien society, with its own rules I was tasked with exploring through the work's duration. There is also something else – a key section of the book – where something very unusual, with an enjoyably surprising cause, takes place, and I felt a real kind of remove from the book until I was finally able to twig on to everything.

By then I was fully on board, and I have to say I enjoyed it all, even the very blunt and snappy side to the ending. I wouldn't normally report on my whole reading experience like that, but I need to mention my awkward time because of the book's very nature. Like those provided by Barrington Stoke publishers, this is specifically geared to those with dyslexia and other reading issues. Old Barn Books deem this to be ready for people with a reading age of 9 and up, but with an appeal for those aged between that and fourteen. That said, I would have wished for a UK edit to have taken said light globe and unheard-of birds out of the way, for ease of access. For something that is really quite different, is fully dramatic, and is actually quite heart-warming, like this, I would wish for as many people as possible to have access to it. Beyond that which I found a little peculiar, there is a heck of a lot that makes for a very distinctive piece; and it's a quite compelling hour's reading.

I must thank the publishers for my review copy.

Rook by Anthony McGowan also concerns a child finding an animal, and fits the exact same audience parameters as above.

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You can read more book reviews or buy A Different Dog by Paul Jennings and Geoff Kelly at Amazon.com.

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Ruth from Old Barn Books said:

Many thanks for your review of A DIFFERENT DOG. I want to reassure you that 'light globe', 'corellas' and also 'gar-bag' (bin bag), which could indeed be very confusing for a UK audience of whatever level of ability have been replaced with anglicised versions for our edition. The advance proof you received was a printing of the Australian text, as you rightly surmised. Sorry to confuse everyone. We'll send you a copy of our edition once it's back from the printer.