DOG TROUBLE

Thirteen-year-old Ash Tompkins likes skateboarding, BMX biking, his friends, and his cat, Suki, but despite all these good things, Ash has had a tough year.

His mom is busy studying and working. Pop, his grandad with whom he had a close relationship, has died. And Ash recently got caught vandalizing an abandoned warehouse with friends. As a result, he’s sent on a ferry away from the city to spend the summer on nearby Ferncliff Island with his father and stepfamily, where he’ll do community service at the animal shelter. The plot focuses on Ash as he bonds with his younger stepsister, Parker, learns how to handle dogs, and deals with grief over the loss of his favorite shelter dog, Cooper. The story provides useful and interesting dog-related information that’s tinged with humor, such as a fecal scoring chart used to gather data on shelter dogs, but it doesn’t delve into the connection between the losses of Pop and Cooper, which are central to Ash’s growth. Varner uses an appealing, limited color palette of gray for flashbacks and blue for the present. Splashes of yellow signal strong emotions, highlight sound effect words, and spotlight the dogs Ash meets. Variations in the panel structure, including trapezoid-shaped cells and ones without borders, add interest and meaning to the reading experience. Ash presents white, and his stepmother and Parker read Black.

Long on canine fun but short on the treatment of the serious (and central) topic of death.