The Saddlebag Hero

This story of a girl who wants an alsatian dog, but gets a guinea pig, and a boy who tries to act tough, but who makes friends in the end, is interesting and often amusing. The dialogue of the children suffers in places from being slangy and so inclined to date (who, they asked, is Shaking Stevens?), but generally the characters are as convincing as the short format allows and there's plenty of room for wondering about motivation and outcome in the book. Enjoyed by independent readers in the lower juniors, who found the ending particularly satisfying since it turned some tables very neatly on the bullies ... and proved that the toughy is not always what he seems. And nor is the guinea pig.