Tuesday, November 18, 2008

No More Dead Dogs by Gordan Korman


Wallace Wallace (no, that's not a typo) doesn't lie. He absolutely refuses to lie. His father lies all the time to Wallace and about silly things. Since Wallace hates that his father lies constantly, he decides to NEVER lie. A decision that will get him in to a ton of trouble later, especially when he has to write a review on a book called Old Shep, My Pal (not a real book) and hates the book with a passion. His English teacher, Mr. Fogelman refuses to accept the paper and makes Wallace attend rehearsals for the upcoming school play, Old Shep, My Pal directed by the one and only Mr. Fogelman (go figure). Needless to say, this does not go very well. While on detention, Wallace Wallace can not even play football. (He was last season's hero, accidentally.) For Wallace, banishment from the team is horrible, but he refuses to jeopardize his morals to lie about a book he absolutely hated. Even when his team starts to turn away from him and someone starts to sabotage the play, Wallace sticks to his principles and refuses to lie. When the sabotage points to Wallace, he continues to tell the truth and eventually becomes the school pariah.
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No More Dead Dogs is a decent book. I have to admit, I hated 2/3 of the book, but eventually began to like it a little. I was annoyed by the constant pov shifts-- from Wallace to Rachel to Wallace to Rachel to Wallace to Trudi to Mr. Fogelman, it was excessive. The chapters were short, so by the time I was able to get into one characters head, it was time to shift to another person. I think Gordan Korman would have been better off keeping this story in one P.O.V. instead of five.
The part of this book that aggravated me the most has to be Wallace Wallace being punished for telling the TRUTH!!! Honesty is probably the most important character trait a person can have and what does this book do, it trashes honesty. First with Wallace's father lying all the time to look important to his son, then the English teacher refusing to accept an essay because he doesn't agree with it, to Wallace's team trying to get him to lie and say he loved the book. Throughout No More Dead Dogs we are shown that honesty is not as important as pleasing other people and that's wrong.

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