RUFFING IT

A boy transformed into a dog by a magic wand seeks to reverse the spell in this middle-grade novel.

When his best friend, Mike Blackburn, gets a new magic wand, Charlie Fogalman is skeptical. How good could it be for three box tops and 50 cents? For his first trick, Mike decides to turn his annoying 3-year-old sister into a frog. But when Mike waves the wand and says the magic word “Abracadabra,” he produces a flash of purple light and Charlie morphs into a brown-and-white, beagle-sized dog—paws, fur, tail, slobber, and all. Worried that repeating the spell will only cause worse trouble, Mike vows to find another solution. Charlie can still talk, in between barks, so since he can’t go home yet, he calls his mother, claiming to be kidnapped. And since Mike’s father is allergic to canines, Charlie has to stay outside, where he must fend off threats from people like the town dog catcher. If Mike can’t reverse the curse in time, Charlie may have to stay a pup permanently. In his latest comic adventure for middle-graders, Trine provides a hilariously horrifying scenario of body-switching as Mike becomes increasingly canine, discovering a love for sniffing fire hydrants, drinking from the gutter, and chasing a mail carrier. Whether as a normal fifth grader or a dog, Charlie has a convincing age-appropriate voice, as when guessing what Mike’s wand could be: “ ‘Nose picker?’ I asked. ‘For those hard-to-reach places?’ ” At times, though, unlike in the author’s previous books, the humor becomes a trifle mean-spirited. Picking on a younger sibling is played for laughs (“It’s a big brother thing—inflict pain on smaller people, especially if they are related to you”). And while Charlie doesn’t like to see his mother cry, a child’s kidnapping would cause real anguish.

Plenty of amusing magic mayhem despite some minor stumbles.