My Life in Dog Years

My Life in Dog Years
Gary Paulsen

I have a confession to make. This morning I was sitting on my back porch, with the intention of reading this book and calmly writing Battle of the Books questions to it. Well let me just say that it’s a good thing it was early in the morning and nobody could hear me because otherwise they would have locked me up somewhere. I have laughed at loud at books, sometimes even hee-hawed, but never, never have I howled with laughter so much and so loudly that I ended up crying.

My Life in Dog Years is about eight of Gary Paulsen’s dogs. He got his first dog at age seven when he was in the Philippines with his parents. He knew the dog was destined to be eaten by his owners and so he saved its life by getting his mother to buy it. The dog, Snowball, later saved his life by killing a deadly snake that was getting ready to strike at him.

Paulsen talks about dogs that were pets, dogs that were sled dogs (one of those also saved his life), and dogs that were working dogs. My favorite chapter – and the one that make me so hysterical with laughter was the one about his Great Dane, Caesar. Other chapters are funny, some are sad, and many are just wonderful reminiscences of Paulsen’s different pets.

This is a wonderful book for all ages. There are a few curse words (none that offended me) and I think it would be great read aloud – in fact, I plan to recommend it to my sixth grade teachers as soon as we get back to school. So far my favorite read of the summer.