One Dog and His Boy

by Ibbotson, Eva

• ISBN13: 9780545351966
• ISBN10: 0545351960
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-03-01
• Publisher: Scholastic Press

Summary

Eva Ibbotson's final masterpiece, a tale of a boy and dog who were meant to be together. All Hal had ever wanted was a dog. "Never!" cries his mother. "Think of the mess, the scratch-marks, the puddles on the floor." But on the morning of Hal's 10th birthday, the unbelievable happens. He's allowed to choose a dog at Easy Pets, a rent-a-pet agency (a fact his parents keep from him). The moment he sees the odd-looking terrier, he knows he's found a friend for life. But no one tells Hal that Fleck must be returned. When Hal wakes up on Monday morning, Fleck is gone. If dog and boy are to stay together they'll have to run away. . . . From the reknowned Eva Ibbotson comes her final novel, a tale laced with humor and brimming over with heart, stunning in its beauty of the love of all things dog.

Author Biography

Eva was the author of twenty novels for children and adults. Her first was published in 1975, and her last is the joyous ONE DOG AND HIS BOY. Eva's books have been shortlisted for every major children’s literary prize in the UK, and JOURNEY TO THE RIVER SEA won the Gold Smarties Award in 2001.

Excerpts

From One Dog and His Boy

That night, lying on the floor with Fleck curled up beside him, Hal was thinking. Often and often when you wanted something and then got it, it was a disappointment. But having a dog was completely different. He'd wanted it and wanted it and when it happened, it was even better than he'd thought it would be. He'd imagined some of it-the companionship and the warmth-but he didn't realize a dog would make you laugh so much, or that he would help you to make so many friends.

It was extraordinary too how much a dog made you see. The hollows in the oak tree... and the way the acorns sat so neatly in their cups . . . how the earth clagged together, so dark after rain... Hal hadn't even noticed that it had rained.

And how much he made you think. Fleck had found an iron grating over a drain when they went out in the afternoon. The drain had interested him so much that he'd lain down on his stomach, just looking and smelling and investigating, and Hal realized that he'd never before thought about what might live down there, in the black and evil-looking water.

Hal reached up to turn on his night-light, but Fleck was lying across his feet and Hal didn't want to disturb him. Anyway, he didn't need a night-light now; he had a protector and a friend.