Fenway and Hattie in the Wild

Victoria J. Coe's Fenway and Hattie in the Wild is a funny, warm dog's-eye adventure for 7 year olds about a Jack Russell who's sure the woods are full of danger.

What happens

Fenway knows something is up. Hattie's bushy hair has gone. Her parents keep saying a word he can't quite remember ("skool"), and every time they do, she smells worried.

Then the car gets packed to the roof, the Food Box is stuffed with bacon and hot dogs, and off they drive into the trees. It's a camping trip with families from Hattie's new school, and Fenway's best friends from next door are coming too.

Everything is told by Fenway, and that's the joy of it. He doesn't understand people words, so you hear them the way he does. Hattie's dad is Fetch Man. Her mum is Food Lady. A tent is a dome that smells horribly of wild animals, and Hattie's comics are "comm-ix". Your reader gets to be one step ahead of the narrator the whole way (and he really isn't quite the professional he thinks he is).

Who doesn't love a dog who greets almost everything with "Yippee!"?

Underneath the jokes there's a gentle story about Hattie being the new kid. There's a group of children who call themselves "the crew", and a boy called Marcus who drops out of a tree just to make her jump. In the dog park, a bossy Pomeranian called Coco rules everyone, and Fenway gets off on the wrong paw with her straight away.

It's very reassuring to read. Fenway is always on Hattie's side, even when she's cross with him, and the worries are the ordinary kind. It would be a lovely one for a child with a first day somewhere new coming up, or for anyone who simply loves dogs.

What to read next

The family has already moved out of the city by this book, and Goldie, Patches and their girl Angel next door are old friends. If your reader wants to go back to where that started, try the first Fenway and Hattie book, where the flat is being packed into boxes and Fenway is convinced squirrels have stolen everything.