The Peachey family are a mess. Their house is a mess. They disagree on everything. They are late, disorganised and grumpy. Ma Peachey has given up on them and resigned from all motherly duties to pursue her yoga.

No one seems to notice until there are no clean undies, school uniforms go missing, matching shoes are like ancient artefacts (you have to dig through the mess to find them), and dinners are whatever takeaway is the easiest.

Betty at nearly nine is feeling lost and unloved. She proposes they get a dog. The uproar is loud and long, but they end up visiting the local dog home together. Choosing a dog is an in depth process, but there is the perfect dog just waiting for them. He decides to adopt the Peachey family.

He is mortified at the Peachey family chaos and begins his 3 step plan to bring back order, and resulting happiness to the household.

I loved this story! The cover gives it a young reader feel, but there is some complex language in this story, as we get to know the Peachey family members. Switching the adoption from human to dog, to dog to human is fun as we see McTavish’s viewpoint.

The way McTavish trains his humans is simple but clever, making this tale funny, thought provoking and immensely enjoyable.

In the rear of the book is advice on how to look after a dog, a recipe for readers to try out (you’ll have to read the story to know why), and a plea for all to consider adopting an animal from your local shelter.

A Dyslexic Read – Reading Age 8 – Interest Age 10-12 – 132 Pages

Author – Meg Rosoff

Illustrator – Grace Easton

Read the first Chapter here

(2017, Barrington Stoke, Dog, Animals, Rescue animal, Dog home, Animal Shelter, Animal Adoption, Family, Siblings, Mum on strike, Yoga, Funny, Humour, Clever, Animal POV, Animal point of view)