“You need to know a little about me before you hear all the rest of the things I’m going to tell you about my life.”

From Gary Paulsen’s How to Train Your Dad.

Carl lives with his widowed dad and their life is far from boring. While Carl is pretty average, his dad is all about repairing stuff, raising a portion of their own food, and bartering instead of working a traditional job. And all of this would be fine except Carl’s dad always takes it too far and Carl is left trying to pick up the embarrassed pieces of his life. When summer vacation rolls around, Carl is ready to spend his days doing his chores, keeping, Carol, their rescued pet pit bull from attacking more skunks, and just having fun with his best friend Pooder, but the summer is anything but ordinary. Beyond tired of his dad’s behavior, Carl gets the brilliant idea to follow the steps from a puppy training booklet on his dad, by ignoring bad behavior like buying more junk and rewarding good behavior like avoiding yard sales. While Pooder doesn’t think Carl’s idea is a good one, he agrees to help his research a bit, and what ensues is a crazy summer filled with pink overalls, the world’s worst bike, and a lesson on accepting the quirks of loved ones.

The rambling design of the narration style is captivating and often hilarious, but does make it difficult to stay on topic at some points. Whether intentional or accidental, some of the pit bull’s behavior comes off as alarming, which will be off-putting to readers for various reasons. With How to Train Your Dad, Paulsen has created a memorable story that middle grade readers will quickly devour.