Gordon Korman. No More Dead Dogs. Prince Frederick MD: Recorded Books, 2000. Audio CD.

No More Dead Dogs demonstrates why we are fans of Gordon Korman. English teacher and drama coach Mr. Fogelman assigns eighth grader Wallace Wallace—yes, that is his name—a book report on Old Shep, My Pal.

As Wallace puts it, when you see a book with an award medallion and the picture of a dog on the cover, you know the dog is going down. In the course of the book, we see the truth of this observation with examples such as Old Yeller, Sounder, Bristleface, Irish Red, and as Wallace points out, Where the Red Fern Grows which has two dogs die before the end. Old Shep, My Pal (c. 1950) is no different in that respect. In some ways it is worse, at least in some of those other books there is some action to keep things going.

Wallace writes an honest, if brief, paper on why he does not like the story. Unfortunately, Shep’s tale is one of Mr. Fogelman’s all-time favorites. Not only that, but he is directing the middle school play this year which is an adaptation of—Old Shep, My Pal. Wallace gets an incomplete, which means detention with the teacher until the work is made up.

Wallace tries a few rewrites, but Mr. Fogelman finds these unacceptable as well. This complicates his life for two reasons beyond the annoyance of daily detentions.

(1) He is on the football team, but he cannot attend practices if he is serving detention, and if the detention is carried over from Friday to Monday, he cannot suit up for the team’s games.

(2) Because Mr. Fogelman is directing the play, Wallace has to attend rehearsals of the stage version of his least favorite story to serve his detention.

Reason #1 becomes a big deal because while Wallace was a substitute player for the team who averaged about five minutes a game, he scored the winning touchdown off an opponent’s fumble in the closing seconds of last year’s championship game. He became a hero in the town, and no one can understand why he is not playing this year, especially as the Giants rack up a significant losing streak. His ex-best friend Cavanaugh, the team’s starting quarterback, gets annoyed because while he did most of the scoring last year, Wallace got a lot of the glory and attention. (Hey, I an a Patriots’ fan, and Malcolm Butler was just a name I heard on the radio occasionally until the Super Bowl a year ago.)

Reason #2 complicates things because Wallace speaks his mind during rehearsals. Indeed, he has a reputation of always telling the truth. He even has a poster of George Washington and the cherry tree in his room at home.

If the dialogue is lame, Wallace says so. Truly, one reason he did not like the book was its stilted and unrealistic dialogue, which the play simply lifts from the novel. If a scene is boring because there is no action, Wallace speaks up. But he is no mere annoying critic or surly complainer. He suggests ways of making improvements. Most of the cast and crew see things his way, so Mr. Fogelman reluctantly agrees to a series of changes in the play. For what it is worth, all of the suggestions are improvements.

There are other complications. The editor and only staff member of the school newspaper builds sensational stories based on a very limited amount of facts. Week by week the kids at school—and many people in town—love Wallace or hate him, depending on what The Sentinel says that week.

The president of the drama club takes acting and the play very seriously. To her, Wallace is a dumb jock trying to cause trouble. Her best friend Trudy develops a crush on Wallace, and her younger brother Dylan, a school football fan, blames the play and the drama coach for ruining the football season—an opinion shared by many in the town.

Also someone is trying to sabotage the play. A number of weird accidents happen during rehearsals including marbles being released on stage causing actors to slip and fall, and right before dress rehearsal the stage is filled with confetti, a foot deep in places. The confetti was formed by someone shredding all 45 copies of the script. Most people believe Wallace is the prankster.

Typical of Korman, there is much humor, a lot of witty dialogue, and multiple points of view. While we mostly see the story from Wallace’s perspective, we get chapters consisting of memos from Mr. Fogelman, diary style letters to Julia Roberts from the drama club president, articles from The Sentinel, and others. Besides characters already mentioned, we meet the football coach, other guys on the football team, a “rad dude” rollerblader, and members of a local rock group including a drummer with bangs to his nose known as the Void.

Gordon Korman is almost always good for a laugh. No More Dead Dogs will not disappoint.