There Is No Dog

Rosoff (Just in Case) looks at the world’s natural disasters, injustices, and chaos and presents a perfectly reasonable explanation: God is a horny teenage boy. According to this gleefully heretical account, God, aka “Bob,” was given Earth by his mother, who won the planet in a poker game. Bob showed flashes of brilliance during Creation, but he feels little responsibility for the planet. When he falls head-over-heels in lust with a beautiful zoo employee, Lucy, Bob’s passion and growing anger toward those who would keep them apart is manifested through wildly fluctuating weather and rampant flooding. Meddling, peevish, and self-absorbed, Rosoff’s pantheon recalls the squabbling deities of Greek and Norse mythology. She takes gleeful pleasure in reducing God to an inept, lovelorn child, her takedowns often delivered through the dry observations of Bob’s industrious assistant, Mr. B., who “marvels that the same God who leaves his dirty clothes in a moldering heap by the side of the bed could have created golden eagles and elephants and butterflies.” Traditionalists may bristle, but there’s no denying that Rosoff’s writing and sense of humor are a force of nature themselves. Ages 12–up. (Jan.)