The Dog in the Freezer: Three Novellas [Hardcover]

Harry Mazer (Author)

Book Description

Puppy Love,"" and ""My Life as a Boy""--captures the wonderful and complex relationships that exist between boys and their dogs.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ahhh ... Harry Mazer. No other author could write such a heart-warming, hilarious story about a boy who keeps a dead dog in the freezer. Here, Mazer collects three very different tales about dogs--stories about a dog and a boy who switch places, about puppy love (both kinds), and about a boy who can't part with his neighbor's dead dog because he's confused about death and endings of a different sort. An award-winning author of many books for teens (and preteens), Mazer is always able to shine his verbal flashlight on the naked, strange underbelly of our lives. This collection, true to form, aches and sparkles like good angst should.

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-9. Three novellas that center around boys and dogs and the obstacles they must overcome. In "My Life as a Boy," Einstein the dog and Gregory, his owner, change bodies. Einstein wins Gregory's basketball game before overcoming the local bullies who are intent on killing the dog. A fatherless boy is sent to spend the summer with an uncle he has never met in "Puppy Love." Lonely and bored, Lucas gets a dog (which he can't take home due to building regulations). No one thinks ahead to the end of summer, and even after the puppy puts down an aggressive bully, her future looks bleak until the uncle makes a last-minute reversal and decides to keep her. The title story is by far the strangest. Jake is frightened by a small, aggressive dog that lives in his building, but when the animal dies, he can't stand the idea of its body being disposed of in the garbage. Missing his absent father and upset that his parents are separating, the boy takes the canine corpse to his apartment where it resides briefly in the freezer while he journeys around New York City trying to find a spot to bury it. These are certainly unusual stories. The writing is straightforward, relying on simple sentence structures and an easy vocabulary, but the language never engages readers fully. The characterizations are superficial and the shallow plots are driven by events that do not ring true.?Darcy Schild, Schwegler Elementary School, Lawrence, KS
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing; 1st edition (April 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689807538
• ISBN-13: 978-0689807534
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,592,203 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Harry Mazer is the author of many books for young readers, including A Boy at War and A Boy No More, which introduced Adam Pelko; The Wild Kid; and Snow Bound. His books have won numerous honors, including the Horn Book Honor List and the ALA Best Books for Young Adults citations. He is the recipient of the ALAN Award. Harry Mazer lives in New York City and Montpelier, Vermont.

Harry Mazer says, "After I finished A Boy at War, I wanted to write about Adam Pelko again, but what was the story to be? It wasn't until after the tragedies of September eleventh that I found the focus I needed to continue his story." Periods of war and national emergency have never been kind to personal liberties. In the aftermath of September eleventh many Arab and Muslim Americans find themselves under suspicion and their rights jeopardized. In some ways this is what happened after Pearl Harbor, when Japanese Americans were demonized and their rights were trampled. I know that history never simply repeats itself, but I hope that through Adam and Davi's story readers will recognize the parallels--and the perils."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Three, amusing, but short stories., June 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Dog in the Freezer: Three Novellas (Hardcover)

"The Dog in the Freezer" is really three books in one. Each story involves dogs, but each story is unique as it can be. The main human character is always a boy, and he always has a good friend who is a girl. The first one is about a dog, Einstein who becomes his boy, Gregory for a day to go through the day of the big basketball game. This story is narrated by Einstein himself, and it came across to me as very direct. It was probably because it was from the dog's point of view, and to dogs, life is simple. The second story is about a boy, Lucas who must spend the summer with his uncle Jerry against his will. Jerry seems to care about Lucas, but he more or less gives him a free reign. He meets this girl Glori who juggles serveral jobs involving dogs. He gets a dog to impress her, and he has Michael(she-dog) go through her training school. Lucas and Michael form a bond and Michael even helps Glori in a nasty situation involving her and her ex-boyfriend. The final story about which the book is titled for, involves a boy named Jake who finally gets the paper route he wants. In one apartment he has to collect from there is a nasty dog dubbed "Big Boy," who dies shortly after he bit Jake in the leg. Jake pities him and sets out to find him a final resting place, even thought there is no good place to bury a dog in New York City. All in all the stories were just so-so. They were not bad stories at all, but nothing stuck out to make it excellent, or have an effect on me, though I enjoyed the book. (I have never owned a dog, so that could be half of it) I finished the book quickly, which to me is a sign of intrest. If a book is entertaining, I won't stop reading it, and I finished this book in about two and a half hours, so it did keep me interested.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Dog in the Freezer is awsome., March 31, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Dog in the Freezer: Three Novellas (Paperback)

The Dog in the Freezer is a comedy book with two other storys. The first story is called "Life as a Boy" is about a dog named Einstien who went inside his owners body. The second story is called puppy love is about a kid who likes this girl and his uncle went to go geta dog for him to get hooked up with this girl. And third is called the "The Dog in the Freezer" is a comedy and suspense well a little.