Being Danny's Dog Book

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor includes many of her own growing-up experiences in the Alice books. She writes for both children and adults and is the author of more than one hundred and twenty-five books, including the Alice series, which Entertainment Weekly has called "tender" and "wonderful." In 1992 her novel Shiloh won the Newbery Medal. She lives with her husband, Rex, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and is the mother of two sons, both grown and married.  Visit Phyllis online at alicemckinley.wordpress.com

School Library Journal

Gr 4-7-Ten-year-old T.R. and 12-year-old Danny are dismayed when their mother moves the three of them into a new development in the country, not long after her divorce. All of them are upset with the manager for having rules against everything that seems to be fun. The situation is ripe for some acting out, and in fact it occurs. T.R., who tells the story, thinks of himself as his beloved brother's sheepdog and protector. He feels responsible for keeping Danny out of trouble, but he eventually learns that his brother can take care of himself. As the boys share experiences with other kids and get to know them better, a sense of community begins to develop that helps everyone to settle down, especially T.R. His struggle to deal with a sense of disrupted life, of homesickness, and of alienation in a strange and seemingly sterile place is similar to that of Leigh in Beverly Cleary's Dear Mr. Henshaw (Morrow, 1983), but there the issues are dealt with more clearly, attention being tightly focused on the main character's concerns. In this book, multiple characters, events, and community issues tend to diffuse the focus. Naylor attempts to offset T.R.'s worries with typically preadolescent bathroom jokes and sly references to the boys' beginning interest in girls, but the effort seems strained in comparison to the lighthearted humor of the author's The Agony of Alice (Atheneum, 1985).-Virginia Golodetz, St. Michael's College, Winooski, VT