The Last Dog on Earth by Daniel Ehrenhaft

Unfortunately, this is another Maud Hart Lovelace nominee that I am not all that excited about. It had some good qualities, and maybe some readers will enjoy it, but with so many outstanding books written for kids I have no idea how this book was chosen. The main character, Logan Moore, is something of a screw-up. He has a rotten stepfather, but he can't blame all his problems on that. The only thing he's really good at is training his new stray dog named Jack. However, it's not a good time to love a dog because a disease epidemic is being spread by dogs in the western U.S. and people are being ordered to kill their dogs to stop the human deaths that are occurring. Anyway, Logan runs away from boot camp (his stepfather forced him to go), meets up with his dog, and tries to save her life. My main problem with this book was that I didn't particularly like Logan. He was kind of a jerk, and he seemed immature and unrealistic for a character who was supposed to be starting high school soon. I guess this book is there for the dog lovers of the world, but beware--bad things happen to dogs in this story!