Read Crime Biters 1 – My Dog Is Better Than Your Dog free in the Little Reads app.
Tommy Greenwald's My Dog is Better than Your Dog is a funny story for 9 year olds about a boy whose new rescue dog just might be a vampire.
Jimmy Bishop is two days from the start of the school year when a blotch appears on his face. Dad says it's the exact shape of Rhode Island. His big sister Misty is delighted.
Jimmy has a meltdown just as Dad is trying to leave for a job interview. So Dad says the magic words. Maybe we should get that dog after all?
At the shelter, every dog is too big, too small, too hairy or too loud. Then Jimmy spots a scruffy little mix in a dark cage at the very back. Two different coloured eyes. A black streak down her back like a cape. She sneezes right in Dad's face, and they take her home anyway.
She's called Abby (not the name Jimmy picked, and the mix-up is very funny).
Abby sleeps all day. She hides from the sun. She runs a mile from the garlic muffins the new babysitter leaves for breakfast. And when she growls at a groundhog, Jimmy sees her fangs properly for the first time. He's read his favourite vampire policeman book about six hundred times, so you can guess where his mind goes!
The babysitter is Mrs Cragg. She has jagged yellow teeth, a cane, and a smile that switches off whenever she looks at the dog. Abby doesn't like her much either.
Jimmy tells it all himself, with FACT lines and little profile cards for everyone he meets. (Dad's listed interest is finding a job so he can stop looking after the children.) It's properly funny, and very easy to read in short bursts.
Underneath the jokes there's a boy who's a bit lonely. Mum is always at work. Dad is glued to his phone. His one friend Irwin is hard work. A dog matters to Jimmy more than he lets on.
If you've got a reader who loves a pet story with a spooky twist (not too spooky!), this is a lot of fun. There's a bully and a big crush on the girl across the road thrown in too.
Jimmy and his odd little dog are back on the trail of crime around town in It's a Doggy Dog World.
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