Henry and Ribsy

Henry and Ribsy by Beverly Cleary is a warm, funny story for 8 year olds about a boy who wants to go salmon fishing with his dad, and a dog who keeps getting in the way.

What happens

Henry Huggins lives on Klickitat Street with his parents and a dog called Ribsy. Ribsy is the best dog in the world if you ask Henry, and a menace if you ask anybody living nearby.

He has already run across Mrs Green's new lawn and left paw prints the whole way over it. In fairness he was chasing the Grumbies' cat. The cat went first.

Over breakfast Henry asks his dad about coming along on the salmon trip in September. His dad says, "We'll see."

This is where the book gets clever. Henry has worked out precisely what his parents' phrases mean. "We'll see" means yes, unless something unusual happens. "Ask your mother" would have meant his dad didn't much care either way.

So Henry now has a fishing trip that is very nearly certain, and a dog his parents have just told him to keep an eye on. He can do the arithmetic.

What you get is a plan any child will recognise. Be good. Keep the dog good. Make sure nothing unusual happens for weeks and weeks.

Meanwhile Henry is busy being Henry. He talks his dad into letting him stay in the car and ride up on the grease rack at the service station, purely because he has always wanted to. Then he tries haunting his friend Scooter from up there in a hollow voice and is rumbled within about four seconds.

There's a painfully true moment when Scooter, who is two years older and has already caught a salmon, asks whether Henry has ever been fishing. Henry says yes. What Henry has actually done is scoop tiny smelt out of a river with an old stocking cap. He decides not to mention this.

The book is American and it is a long way from new, so there are grease racks and filling stations and a dog food jingle on the radio at nine o'clock. None of it will stop a reader, but a couple of words may need explaining.

There's nothing to warn you about here. The worst thing that happens is a boy being embarrassed, and mostly he does it to himself.

What to read next

If your reader takes to him, Henry and the Clubhouse gives him a paper round and a plan to build something out of whatever timber he can find. That book's first page cheerfully admits his ideas have a way of not turning out as planned, which by then will come as no surprise at all.