book cover

Good Dog McTavish

by Meg Rosoff, illustrated by Grace Easton

Interest age: 7 to 9
Reading age: 7 to 9

Published by Barrington Stoke, 2017

  • Chapter books
  • Funny

About this book

Ma Peachey has quit. Fed up of tidying up after everybody, cooking dinner every night and being a general dogsbody, she’s given up being a mum and taken up yoga instead, sending the Peachey family into disarray. Betty’s solution? Adopt a rescue dog.

When fluffy pooch McTavish moves in, he finds the family in quite a pickle. But not to worry because McTavish has a plan… Several plans in fact. It’s hard work adopting new humans, but with a few clever techniques, he’s sure he’ll have them retrained in no time at all.

This brilliantly charming and heartwarming short novel is full of spark, keen observations and sly humour. Every character is brought perfectly to life, from grumpy dad to practical Betty and the can-do McTavish. A dyslexia-friendly story with widespread appeal, but beware: it will make you want to adopt a McTavish of your own.

About the author

Meg Rosoff was born in Boston, USA in 1956, the second of four sisters. She attended Harvard University in 1974. After three years at Harvard she moved to England and studied sculpture at Central St. Martins in London, England. She returned to the United States to finish her degree in 1980, and later moved to New York City for nine years, where she worked in publishing and advertising.

Aged 32, Meg returned to London and has lived there ever since. Between 1989 and 2003, she worked for a variety of advertising agencies as a copywriter. She began to write novels after her youngest sister died of breast cancer. Her young adult novel How I Live Now was published in 2004, in the same week she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It won The Guardian Children's Fiction prize, the Michael L. Printz Award in the United States, and was shortlisted for a Whitbread Award in 2004. In 2005 she published a children's book, Meet Wild Boars, which was illustrated by Sophie Blackall. Her second novel, Just in Case, was published in 2006 and won the 2007 CILIP Carnegie Medal and Germany's Jugendliteraturpreis.

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