A young boy discovers the courage he never knew he had with the help of a mysterious dog in this middle-grade reader.

Daniel lives with his mom in an apartment in Brooklyn, where he spends his summer hiding from bullies (especially the bully’s leader, Punch) and avoiding the noisy, overwhelming city streets. While doing his “bully check” from the window, Daniel sees a large black and white dog looking up at him. The next time he goes outside, the dog is still there: “And then it attacked me! Well, with its tongue. Total face wipe. Slobberama!” Overcoming his fear, Daniel walks with the mysterious dog (who turns out to be an Australian shepherd named Pablo) to the playground—where Pablo promptly herds all of the bullies in a circle, leaving the climbing rig free for Daniel. Over the next few weeks, Daniel and Pablo are inseparable as they experience some of New York City’s most iconic offerings: riding the subway, swimming near Coney Island, watching a dragon parade in Chinatown, visiting Times Square, and more. Wherever they go, Pablo herds the bullies away from Daniel, giving him the courage to explore his surroundings. Eventually, Punch approaches him on the street, and Pablo is gone—but Daniel is now brave enough to stand up for himself. Readers then discover that he largely invented the stories about bullies in order to stay in the apartment with his mother where they are still mourning the death of Daniel’s dad: “I started to realize being sad feels the same as being afraid.” But Pablo inspires Daniel to explore the city with his own mother, signaling a brighter future for them both.

The color illustrations range from full page to half page to small squares interspersed between pages of dense text. The images, created by generative AI, are sometimes hyperrealistic and often resemble photos with features painted over them. Daniel proves to be a charming narrator, prone to authentically youthful tangents (“One day when I was bored—I do get bored in my apartment once in a while. Which is worse? Being bored or being scared? That’s something to think about…Anyway!”). Despite an odd digression on how Daniel figured out Pablo was a “he,” the narrative style remains largely well-balanced between childlike (“This is what Mom calls a ‘simile.’ It’s different than a ‘metaphor.’ But this is no time for me to explain it”) and worldly (“After a while, as long as I was with Pablo, all of New York City felt like it was my block”). Daniel’s tentative exploration of the environment around him echoes larger themes that are explicitly stated in ways that younger kids can understand. Authors Mark and Harry Rosenthal continually impart valuable lessons about family, courage, and grief—whether it’s revealing that Punch is really just a lonely little boy abused by his father or showing that Pablo disappeared because Daniel was finally courageous enough on his own. When readers learn that Daniel’s dad died and the whole book is a depiction of the boy’s grief, the gut punch will resonate deeply with anyone who’s lost a loved one.

This poignant twist on the classic “boy and his dog” story addresses multiple difficult issues with grace and compassion.