How to Train Your Dad

By Gary Paulsen

Book Overview

From the legendary author of Hatchet, a laugh-out-loud misadventure about a boy, his free-thinking dad, and the puppy-training pamphlet that turns their summer upside down.

Twelve-year-old Carl is fed up with his father's single-minded pursuit of an off-the-grid existence. His dad may be brilliant, but dumpster-diving for food, scouring through trash for salvageable junk, and wearing clothes fully sourced from garage sales is getting old. Increasingly worried about what schoolmates and a certain girl at his new school might think of his circumstances--and encouraged by his off-kilter best friend--Carl adopts the principles set forth in a randomly discovered puppy-training pamphlet to "retrain" his dad's mindset . . . a crackpot experiment that produces some very unintentional results.

This is a fierce and funny novel about family, green-living, and untangling some of the ties that bind from middle-grade master Gary Paulsen.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374314179
• ISBN13: 9780374314170
• Release Date: October 2021
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Byr)
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 10 to 13 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 8