How to train your dad

First Title Value for Searching:

Personal Author:

Paulsen, Gary

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

186 pages ; 22 cm.

Summary:

Twelve-year-old Carl is fed up with his father's single-minded pursuit of an off-the-grid existence. His dad may be brilliant, but dumpster-diving for food, scouring through trash for salvageable junk, and wearing clothes fully sourced from garage sales is getting old. Increasingly worried about what schoolmates and a certain girl at his new school might think of his circumstances--and encouraged by his off-kilter best friend--Carl adopts the principles set forth in a randomly discovered puppy-training pamphlet to “retrain” his dad’s mindset...a crackpot experiment that produces some very unintentional results.

Subject Term:

Fathers and sons -- Juvenile fiction

Audience/Lexile:

Ages 10-14.

Grades 4-6.

1200 L

Publication Info:

New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 2021.

Subject:

Fathers and sons -- Juvenile fiction

SAILS ISBN:

9780374314170

Available:

Library	Shelf Number	Shelf Location	Status
Searching... Plainville Public Library	J PAU	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Acushnet Library	J PAULSEN	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Ahern MS Media Center Foxboro	FIC PAU	Stacks	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Attleboro Public Library	J PAULSEN,G	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Berkley Public Library	J FIC PAULSEN	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Dighton Middle School	F PAU	Stacks	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Dighton Public Library	J PAU	1:JTOWNHALL	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Elizabeth Taber Library	J PAU	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Fall River Main	JFIC PAU	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Hanson Public Library	PAULSEN	YOUTH-FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Holmes Public Library	J PAU	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Mansfield Public Library	Y FIC PAULSEN	YOUTH-FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Mattapoisett Free Public Library	J PAU	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Middleborough Public Library	JF PAU	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... New Bedford Bookmobile	J FIC PAULSEN	BOOKMOBILE	Searching... Unknown
Searching... New Bedford Francis J. Lawler Branch	J FIC PAULSEN	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... New Bedford Free Public Library	J FIC PAULSEN	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... New Bedford Howland-Green Branch	J FIC PAULSEN	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Norton Public Library	J PAU	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Raynham Library	JFICTION PAU	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Seekonk Public Library	JFIC PAULSEN	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Somerset Public Library	Y PAULSEN GARY	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Swansea Public Library	J PAULSEN, G	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Westport Free Public Library	J FIC PAU	CHILDREN FICTION	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

From the legendary author of Hatchet , a laugh-out-loud misadventure about a boy, his free-thinking dad, and the puppy-training pamphlet that turns their summer upside down.

Twelve-year-old Carl is fed up with his father's single-minded pursuit of an off-the-grid existence. His dad may be brilliant, but dumpster-diving for food, scouring through trash for salvageable junk, and wearing clothes fully sourced from garage sales is getting old. Increasingly worried about what schoolmates and a certain girl at his new school might think of his circumstances--and encouraged by his off-kilter best friend--Carl adopts the principles set forth in a randomly discovered puppy-training pamphlet to "retrain" his dad's mindset . . . a crackpot experiment that produces some very unintentional results.

This is a fierce and funny novel about family, green-living, and untangling some of the ties that bind from middle-grade master Gary Paulsen.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In a comically wry narration, Carl Hemesvedt explains that he desperately wants to be "lookatable" to impress classmate Peggy. But this poses a challenge for the cued-white 12-going-on-13-year-old, whose resourceful but mishap-prone single father believes in living off the grid in a "semi-scroungy" trailer in an industrial area, dumpster-diving for food, and bartering labor for clothes at garage sales. When Carl discovers a puppy-training pamphlet in a marked-down bag of food for the family's pit bull rescue, he tries applying its tenet of positive reinforcement to persuade his father to adopt more socially acceptable habits, also enlisting the help of garrulous best friend Pooder. Newbery Honoree Paulsen, renowned for his tales of survival, revisits the humor and hijinks found in his Liar, Liar series. Carl's hang-dog descriptions of having to wear pink overalls and ride an "original creation" bike are funny and endearing, and eternal optimist Pooder is the perfect sidekick to perpetually resigned Carl. And underneath the training mishaps is a sweet story about a kid who figures out that his life--and his dad--may not be so bad after all. Ages 10--14. (Oct.)

Kirkus Review

Carl tries to change his father's frugal behavior over the course of a summer. Narrator Carl, 12, believes that his problem is his relentlessly optimistic, handy dad, who sees their life in a small trailer with pigs (fed partly from dumpster forays), chickens, and a garden as rich and full. But Carl's heart has been captured from afar, and he believes that being noticed will take an improved kind of being "lookatable." Carl's father regards money as stored human energy (and therefore sees energy as a kind of currency)--he "leans well into the concept of being practical and has never been one to honor the cosmetic side of things" and is an accomplished barterer who can't pass up a garage sale. Carl's pink, feminine overalls come from a garage sale, and his too-small underwear hails from another bargain source. Carl's garrulous, singularly imaginative sidekick Pooder (he "has made tangents an art form") offers color commentary, advice, comic relief, and perspective by turns. Carl takes inspiration from a pamphlet on puppy training in his plan to reward good behavior and ignore less desirable (as in dumpster diving for shoes) in his dad. The tall-tale, anecdotal quality of Carl's story is entertaining with its recitation of disastrous, smelly, embarrassing, dangerous, and misguided moments. Both father and son turn out to be likable heroes. Characters are assumed White. Funny, sure-handed, wise. (Fiction. 10-14) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

In a fresh, dude-centric romp from the author of Lawn Boy (2007) and Liar, Liar (2011), near-teen Carl sets out to cure his single dad of certain embarrassing habits with help from recklessly agreeable friend Pooder Haskell and a puppy-training manual. It's a tough challenge, as efforts to wean his unwitting and otherwise terrific father of a deep dedication to living cash-free through home gardening, dumpster diving, and yard-sale bartering are complicated by the opposition of the family pit bull Carol, who, in between gruesomely defending the henhouse from marauding skunks turns out to be a dab hand (or, OK, paw) at bending young humans to her will. Readers may sympathize with Carl, with his fixed-up, recumbent bike, mismatched shoes, and secondhand pink Juicy overalls, but following a string of hilarious set pieces, Paulsen tucks in a final sweet reconciliation with a hint of sequels on the way. A comical take on the value of "positive reinforcement" that's as perceptive as it is playful.