Talking in Animal

Siobhan feels closer to her ailing dog, Tree, than to any of the hard-to-understand humans in her life. The New Hampshire girl spends her days fantasizing about the dog kennel she'll have one day, and also helps a neighbor, Maddy, take care of injured wildlife. Suddenly, Maddy throws two curve balls--she's getting married, and her born-again Christian beliefs put her drastically at odds with Siobhan's vocal mother over the issue of distributing condoms at the high school. After conflict escalates and Tree gets sicker, a desperate Siobhan takes the only action she knows to get people's attention and give her dog one last adventure. Farish (Shelter for a Seabird) has an idiosyncratic and sophisticated way of writing that takes some getting used to--the pauses, half-uttered phrases and confusing thoughts are closer to how people really communicate than the polished cadences more typically found in novels. The condom plot might offend some, but it is realistically dealt with--the 11-year-old Siobhan is more interested in whether a condom could be used as a balloon than in its political or anatomical implications. And the ending will leave not a dry eye in the house. Ages 10-up. (Oct.)