August 2017, The O'Brien Press, 160 pages, Paperback, Review copy
Summary from O'Brien Press
Animal lover and champion Irish dancer Samantha Hannigan is having a
truly woof week. She and her best friend Ajay were messing around with
the Brain Swap 3000, one of her grandad’s crackpot inventions, and now
Sam is stuck inside the body of her neighbours’ dog – and it’ll be days
before they can change her back!
Nayu's thoughts
This is a wonderfully
hilarious read! A few bits grossed me out, hence the not quite
perfect grade, but overall I loved this and am looking forward to
rereading it already. Bruno is an evil brother, forcing Sam into an
unpleasant situation (I would have liked the bathroom issue to be
explored further...) but she has guts to keep going and attempt the crazy lie
about her appearance which spirals into a life changing event.
I loved the bumbling goons who added to the humour, I loved how Sam's
grandmother was nuts enough to initially be oblivious to Sam's
changed self, then not being overly surprised when she understands the truth. What I loved most was what happened at the end, because
if she hadn't cared about animals and been a decent dog-girl human
being she could have taken advantage of the mony, but she didn't.
It's her brother's fault that she finally gets what she wants, along
with a greater insight into being a dog, skills which I'm sure will benefit her in the future. She certainly gets creative with the truth, and several times I thought she'd be found out as being an initially bogus shelter but everything works out ok. The interactions at the
dance festival and at school had me staring in disbelief by
what people were happy to be fooled with, while Sam was incredibly happy to not be viewed as a science experiment (just a weird girl with a good heart).
Suggested read
For more laughs without shapeshifting check out The Matilda Effect by Ellie Irving (Children's, 9 years +, 10E/10E)
No comments:
Post a Comment