The best middle grade books about dogs and their owners often warm readers hearts, whether or not they’re dog lovers. Although I already have a list of middle grade books about animals, it was only right to make one just about dogs! This list includes books written from the dogs’ perspective and those about the bond shared by a tween and their dog.
best high school books about dogs
Here are 31 of the best middle grade books about dogs:
You are reading: Dog books for 4th graders
moon howls
luna has always wanted to be a therapy dog at therapy dogs around the world. she is now one step away from reaching her fifty hit pin that will make it official. But when her “clients” of hers, the children who visit her, join a therapy group, Luna’s routine changes.
Like the moon, the moon shows different faces at different times. And each of her clients has different needs: Beatrice is entangled in knots of rage, Caleb rushes like a waterfall, Amelia carries fear like a shadow, and Hector is silent as a rock. To comfort the children, Luna can be whatever they need her to be, but can she be everything to them at once?
When hector doesn’t show up for a session one day, the kids go on an unexpected quest to find him. Luna bands together to keep them safe, and they must work together to almost uncover the truth.
wake
Ever since she was a puppy, Stella was trained to use her powerful beagle nose to sniff out dangerous chemicals and help her handler keep people safe. But during a routine security inspection, Stella smells an explosive. the sound of the explosion is loud and scary. Unable to return to work due to her anxiety, Ella Stella retires as a working dog.
When a young girl named Chloe wants to adopt Stella, the beagle knows this is her last chance to prove herself. but how? When Stella smells a strange chemical inside Chloe’s body, a scent that arises just before the girl has a seizure, Stella’s nose makes the connection. But how can Ella Stella warn her new family without them thinking she’s having an anxiety attack? How can she convince the others that she can be a new kind of service dog and hopefully save Chloe’s life?
Told from Stella’s perspective, this story is about a special dog who must find the courage to overcome her fears in order to help save a girl with epilepsy.
I, cosmo
ever since cosmo became max’s big brother ten years ago, he’s known his job: to protect his son and make him happy. Through many good years marked by tennis balls and stolen turkey, torn toilet paper and fragrant goose poop, Cosmo has stubbornly kept his promise. Until recently, his biggest problems were the evil tutu-wearing sheepdog he met at Halloween and arthritis in his own joints. But now, with daddy-scented blankets showing up on the couch and arguing voices growing louder, Cosmo senses a tougher challenge ahead. When Max comes up with the crazy idea of teaching them both a dance routine for a contest, how can Cosmo say no, hips tight or not? Max wants to remind his family of all the good times they’ve had dancing together and make them forget about the “d” word that makes them all cry. Told in the open, optimistic, and unintentionally humorous voice of a golden retriever, i, cosmo will grab readers from page one, reminding them that love and loyalty transcend anything life throws at you.
sun
newbery honoree marion dane bauer evokes the “summer that changed everything” in the life of a boy growing up without a mother. For as long as Ben can remember, it’s been him, his devoted father, and Sol-Ben’s little dog, who have rarely left Ben’s side. it was mom who left, and ben is about to spend a whole week with his suddenly present mom in the wilds of northern minnesota. On the remote island she calls home, Ben will learn to camp, canoe, weather the elements, and weigh a burning question: when will she return to where she belongs? A must-read for dog lovers, children of divorce, and lovers of imagination and the great outdoors, Sunshine is a poignant and hopeful story of self-discovery, facing big realities, and finally forgiving the odds. things and people you can’t forget. .
second hand dogs
miss lottie’s house was for second chances.
When she adopted Gus, Roo, Tank, and Moon Pie, Miss Lottie rescued each member of the pack (including herself, her helper, Quinn, and her lonely cat, the Ghost) and made them a family. But when a new dog, Decker, arrives and attempts to steal Miss Lottie’s heart and home, the future of the pack is threatened.
Initially, Gus, the insecure leader of the pack, only notices little things, like a small mooncake being kicked off the bed and the ghost acting scared (then… the ghost is a cat). But things soon go from bad to worse as Decker’s presence causes disharmony in the group.
When Decker convinces Moon Pie to embark on an impossible journey, Gus must muster the courage, reunite his fragmented pack and bring the little dog home. And with coyotes and cars on the loose, the pack must navigate obstacles and danger to reunite with Moon Pie before she can get hurt or worse, have her heart broken.
raising lumi
olive hudson desperately wants a dog. but that doesn’t seem to be a possibility at the moment. She’s newly orphaned, she’s moving in with the half-sister she barely knows, and her life is too chaotic to include a dog. But then something wonderful happens: Olive gets the opportunity to raise Lumie, a guide dog puppy. discipline. rules. many hugs. Only the best of the best puppies go on to become guide dogs, and of course Olive wants Lumie to be chosen. but if she is, that means olive will lose her. Once again, the incomparable Joan Bauer tells a moving story that is full of heart, warmth, and unabashed idealism.
talking to Alaska
It only takes one day at their new school for Parker and Sven to become mortal enemies. Parker has had a terrible summer and just wants to be invisible, while Sven is desperate to make a good impression and be known as something other than “that guy with epilepsy”.
When parker finds out that her beloved dog alaska, whom she had to give away last year, now belongs to sven, she’s determined to get alaska back. Of course, that’s easier said than done…
good dog
brodie was a good dog. and good dogs go to heaven. except brodie can’t move on. not yet. As wonderful as her vision of the afterlife is, she cannot forget the child she left behind. the boy she loved and who loved him in return. the boy who is still in danger. so brodie breaks the rules of heaven. he returns to earth as a spirit. With the help of two other lost souls, lovable pit bull Tuck and sullen scapegoat, he is determined to find his son and save him. even if it costs him paradise. even if he loses his eternal soul, because that’s what a good dog would do.
pawcasso
every saturday, pawcasso trots into town with a basket, a shopping list, and cash to buy groceries for his family. one day, she passes eleven-year-old jo, who is looking out the window of her house, bored and alone. Amazed by the sight of an adorable dog carrying a basket by himself, Jo follows Pawcasso, and when a group of kids from her school see her next to him, they mistake her for Pawcasso’s owner.
Excited to make new friends, Jo reluctantly hides the truth and agrees to let “her” dog model for an art class attended by the kids. what can go wrong? But what starts out as a chihuahua-sized lie quickly turns into a great dane when animal control receives complaints about a dog roaming the streets off-leash. With Pawcasso’s freedom at stake, is Jo willing to reveal the truth and risk her newfound friendships?
so brave
This inspiring story, which award-winning author Leslie Connor called “a journey of the heart in perfect rhythm,” is perfect for fans of Lisa Graff and Lynda Mullaly Hunt.
Cyrus Olson’s father is a hero: the former Northfield football star and now a top firefighter. Everyone expects Cyrus to follow in his record-breaking father’s footsteps, and he wishes they were right, except he’s never been that brave. But this year, with the help of a stray dog, some new friends, a little rhythm, and a lot of courage, he just might find out that it really…is him.
a home for goddesses & dogs
It’s a new year that changes life for thirteen-year-old Lydia when she moves to a farm in Connecticut to live with her aunt after her mother’s death.
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Auntie Snotty and her jovial wife, Eileen, and their former landlord, Loroy, are welcoming and a bit quirky. Lydia’s struggle for a sense of belonging in her new family is highlighted when the women adopt a large yellow dog just days after the girl’s arrival.
Wasn’t a ransom enough?
lydia doesn’t like dogs, and this is a problem! he is suspicious and furtive. she urinates in the house, escapes into the woods and barks at unseen things. The new owners of him begin to guess about his unknown past.
Meanwhile, Lydia doesn’t want to be difficult, and she doesn’t mean to keep any secrets, but there are things she’s not telling…
the only & just bob
Bob embarks on a dangerous journey in search of his missing sister with the help of his two best friends, Ivan and Ruby. As a hurricane approaches and time runs out, Bob finds courage he never knew he had and learns the true meaning of friendship and family.
bob, ivan and ruby have touched the hearts of millions of readers and their story is not over yet. Catch up with these dear friends before the star-studded film adaptation of the one and only Ivan hits theaters in August 2020.
a dog-friendly city
epic twelve-year-old mcdade is not ready for high school. he’d rather help out at his dog-friendly family’s bed and breakfast all summer long, or return to his alternative elementary school in the fall, where learning feels safe. but change comes in all shapes and skin colors. When Carmelito, California is named the #1 dog-friendly city in the United States, all the best dogs and their owners will flock to the laid-back seaside neighborhood of Epic for a week of celebration.
Mcdads are in dog heaven with all the new business until a famous dog’s jewel-encrusted collar goes missing. all the guests are suspects, and epic will have to find new friends and new ideas to uncover the culprit before the week is out.
time rangers
meet the ranger! is a time-traveling golden retriever with a nose for trouble. . . and always saves the day! The ranger has been trained as a search and rescue dog, but he can’t officially pass the test because he always gets distracted by squirrels during exercises. One day, he finds a mysterious first aid kit in the garden and is transported back to the year 1850, where he meets a young man named Sam Abbott. Sam’s family is migrating west on the Oregon Trail, and shortly after the ranger arrives, he helps the boy save his little sister. The ranger thinks his job is done, but the Oregon Trail can be dangerous, and the Abbots need the ranger’s help more than they think!
a dog like daisy
daisy has only ten weeks to prove her usefulness or else she will be sent back to the kennel. However, if she comes back, who will protect Colonel Victor from her ptsd attacks? Or save the smallest human, Micah, from those hellish muzzles he calls earpieces? What if no one adopts her again?
Determined to become the elite protector the Colonel needs, Daisy vows to pass the service dog test. she’ll accept the ridiculous leash and learn to sit, walk, shake, and even do whatever you want, daisy, when told to.
But Daisy must first learn to face her own past fears or risk losing the family she’s so desperate to protect, again.
zues chaos dog
zeus comes from a long line of heroic dogs and dreams of glory as a k9 commander. but he gets a much more dangerous assignment: high school! And as all good service dogs know, the only way to get through hostile territory is to be invisible.
zeus’s new human, madden, is diabetic and also wants to be invisible. that’s hard to do with a huge german shepherd next to him to alert him when he drops his blood sugar. and it’s even more difficult because madden makes this noise called music that attracts attention. Zeus’ mission is clear: he must destroy music.
While Zeus’s training has prepared him for his most important job, keeping Madden safe, he discovers that the human world is complicated. As Madden dreams of winning the state band contest and tries to reconnect with her mother, the lieutenant, Zeus must learn that sometimes you have to stand out to do her duty.
how to steal a dog
georgina hayes is desperate. Ever since her father left and they were evicted from her apartment, her family has been living in her car. With her mother juggling two jobs and trying to earn enough money to find a place to live, Georgina is stuck taking care of her younger brother, Toby. and she has her heart set on improving her situation. when georgina sees a missing dog poster with a five hundred dollar reward, the solution to all of her problems suddenly seems to be within her grasp. all she has to do is “borrow” the right dog and her owners will surely offer her a reward. what happens next is the last thing she expected.
wonderland
Mavis Jeeter is fearless and fearless, but she’s never lived in one place long enough to have a true best friend. Ella’s capricious mother has uprooted them again to another new home and has taken a job as a housekeeper for the Tully family. mavis wants to make this home permanent, which means finding a best friend.
Rose Tully is a troublemaker who feels like she doesn’t quite fit in with the other girls in her neighborhood. her closest friend is mr. duffy, but he hasn’t been himself since his dog died. rose may have to break some of her mother’s many rules to help mr. duffy—and find someone who really understands her.
henry has run away from home, but he longs for kindness and comfort, and doesn’t know where to look.
when mavis and rose hatch a plan to find mr. duffy a new dog, their lives and henry’s intersect, and they all get to find friendship in places they never expected.
ruff rules
Twelve-year-old Jessie is going to spend a long summer at her aunt and uncle’s house. ella ann de ella’s cousin has a snotty new best friend, leaving jessie alone. But Jessie is hard-working and, not content with being ignored all summer, she convinces Wes, a cantankerous neighborhood dog walker, to take her on as her apprentice. Sure, dog walking turns out to be more difficult than she bargained for, but she has Wes’s dog walking code, the rules of the ruff, to guide her, and soon she’ll be organizing her own pack. But when a charismatic rival dog walker moves into town, she quickly snatches most of Wes’ business, and Jessie decides she’s not going to accept this defeat with her tail between her legs.
a dog and his boy
eva ibbotson’s latest masterpiece, the story of a boy and a dog who were meant to be together.
all hal had ever wanted was a dog. “never!” her mother cries. She “thinks of the mess, the scratch marks, the puddles on the floor.” But on the morning of Hal’s tenth birthday, the unbelievable happens. he is allowed to choose a dog at easy pets, a pet rental agency (a fact his parents keep from him). The moment he sees the strange-looking terrier, he knows that he has found a friend for life. but no one tells hal that the stain must be returned. When Hal wakes up Monday morning, Fleck is gone. if the dog and the boy are going to stay together, they will have to run away. . . . From the renowned Eva Ibbotson comes a tale laced with humor and full of heart, stunning in its beauty of love for all things dog.
such a small dog
in such a small dog young ben blewitt is desperate for a dog. he’s picked out the biggest and best dogs from the library books, and he knows he’s getting one for his birthday. Ben is excited when the big day arrives, but he gets a picture of a dog instead of a real one! But imagination can be a powerful thing, and when Ben puts his to work, his adventures really begin!
fenway and hattie
fenway is an excitable and endlessly energetic jack russell terrier. He lives in the city with the food lady, the man he’s looking for, and of course, his beloved little human and best friend in the world, Hattie.
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But when his family moves to the suburbs, Fenway faces a world of change. He’s very happy with the huge dog park behind his new home, but he’s not so happy with the mean squirrels taunting him from the trees, the super slippery dining room floor, and the changes that have happened lately. Instead of playing with Fenway, she seems more interested in his new human friend under him and learning how to play baseball. Her friends at the dog park next door say Hattie is getting over him, but that can’t be right. And she’s going to prove it!
Get a dog’s-eye view of the world in this heartwarming and heartwarming story about two best friends.
I love that dog
jack hates poetry. only girls write it and every time he tries it, his brain feels empty. But his teacher, Miss Stretchberry, keeps giving him poetry homework in class, and Jack can’t help it. but then something amazing happens. the more he writes, the more he learns that he has something to say.
“I guess it looks like a poem when you see it written like that.”
mountain dog
When tony’s mom is sent to jail, he is sent to stay with a great uncle he never knew in sierra nevada. It’s a daunting move: Tony’s new world doesn’t look like his old one. But slowly, in a remote and remarkable context, the scars of Tony’s troubled past begin to heal. With his uncle and a search-and-rescue dog named Gabe by his side, he learns to track wild animals, is welcomed to Cowboy Church, and makes new friends at Mountain School. More importantly, though, it’s through Gabe that Tony discovers unconditional love for the first time, in Margarita Engle’s Mountain Dog.
lilac and hadley
hadley is angry about many things: her mother going to jail. having to move out of state to live with her older sister, beth, even though they haven’t spoken in five years. leaving behind her friends and her school. and going blind.
but then hadley meets lila.
Lila is an abandoned dog who spends her days lounging peacefully at the local dog rescue where Beth works. she does not listen to instructions or play with the other dogs or show interest in people. so when lila arrives and sits next to hadley (which is nothing, but more than she’s ever done with others), beth thinks maybe hadley can help lila. She tells Hadley that they are bringing Lila home as a foster dog and Hadley can teach her to follow commands, walk on a leash, and be more of a people dog so that she is ready to be adopted.
Only working with Lila is more difficult than Hadley thought, and so is the mobility training she begins to take to help her with her failing eyesight. It seems that Lila is too stubborn to train and that learning to use a cane is impossible. But unless Hadley can help Lila, she will never be adopted into a foster home. If Hadley could put aside her anger, she could save Lila…and herself.
a stray dog named puppy
The puppy and his son are inseparable. But their world changes forever when a puppy is cruelly taken away and abandoned in an alley of dead dogs. With nowhere else to turn, the pup joins a pack of misfit strays who help him learn to fight for survival on the streets. the pup clings to the hope of one day being reunited with his child. But as hope dwindles with each passing day, the cub begins to wonder if his bond has been irreversibly broken…
wish
Eleven-year-old Charlie Reese has been making the same secret wish every day since fourth grade. she even has a list of all the ways there are to make a wish, like cutting the pointy end off a slice of cake and making a wish while she takes the last bite. But when she’s sent to North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains to live with a family she barely knows, it seems unlikely her wish will come true. That is until she meets Wishbone, a skinny stray dog who captures her heart, and Howard, a neighbor who is surprising in many ways. Suddenly, Charlie is in grave danger of discovering that what she thought she wanted may not be what she needs at all.
we could be heroes by margaret finnegan
hank hudson is in a little trouble. After an incident involving the boys’ bathroom and a terribly sad book their teacher forces them to read, Hank is left with a week’s suspension and a slightly charred hardcover, and it turns out he’s got the attention of new girl Maisie Huang. .
Maisie has been looking for a boy with meatballs to help her with a very important mission: save her neighbor’s dog, booler. booler has seizures, and his owner, mr. Jorgensen keeps him tied to a tree day and night because of them. It’s enough to make Hank even sadder than that book: he has autism and knows what it’s like to be treated badly for something that makes you different.
but different is not less. And Hank is willing to get into more trouble to prove it. Soon he and Maisie are lying, toasty-nosed, baking and milking cows, all in the name of saving Booler, but not all is as it seems. booler might not be the only one that needs to be saved. And being a hero can be a lot like being a friend.
she untied
ella cohen was skeptical when her mother started dating krishnan just a few months after her parents’ divorce. but two years later, she really likes having her new stepfather around. When she decides to enter a junior dog show, Krishnan even lets her start handling her dog, Elvis. she is determined to become a master handler, even after her first show ends in disaster.
Unfortunately, some things are more difficult to control, like her father, who has changed a lot since the divorce. he used to be laid back and fun, but now he looms over her constantly, terrified that he’ll break into a million pieces if he hints that everything in her life isn’t perfect. She is particularly upset that her animosity towards Krishna prevents him from coming to see her drive Elvis, especially when she wins a lottery spot at the National Dog Show in Philadelphia.
When her best friends suggest she find her dad a date at the dog show, it seems like the perfect solution. if her dad has a new girlfriend, he probably won’t care so much that her mom has a new husband. so she decides to play matchmaker, even going so far as to create a fake online dating profile to find her father, her only true love.
But it turns out that people, like dogs, aren’t always that easy to control, and her plan backfires at the worst possible time. Will she be able to unite her divided life in time for her moment in the spotlight?
dog sled dreams
Twelve-year-old Rebecca dreams of becoming a famous dog sled racer. She’s an inventive but insecure musher as she faces blinding blizzards, wild animal attacks, puppy training, and flying poop projectiles. all of her challenges seem easier than living up to the dogs confidence in her abilities.
only for megan e. free man
When twelve-year-old maddie hatches a plan for a secret sleepover with her two best friends, she ends up waking up in the middle of a nightmare. she is alone, abandoned in a town that has been mysteriously evacuated and abandoned.
With no one to trust, no electricity, and no working phone lines or internet access, maddie slowly learns to survive on her own. her only companions are a rottweiler named george and all the books she can read. After a rocky start, Maddie learns to trust her own ingenuity and invents clever ways to survive in a deserted and forgotten place.
As the months go by, escape from natural disasters, looters, and wild animals. But Maddie’s most formidable enemy is the crushing loneliness she faces every day. Can Maddie’s stubborn will to survive get her through the most terrifying experience of her life?
legs – kate foster
at home, alex’s best friend is kevin the cockapoo, but what he wants most is a friend at school. but that’s harder than he expected. a moving story about learning that friendship is not the same for everyone and that it is often found where you least expect it.
everything is changing for 11-year-old alex, and as an autistic person, change can be terrifying. With the first day of high school just a couple of months away, Alex is sure having a friend by his side will help. So he came up with a plan: impress the kids at school by winning a trophy at the Paw Dog Show with his trusted sidekick, Kevin. this should be a walk in the park. . . right?
when friendship followed me home
ben coffin has never felt like he fit in. a former foster child, he keeps his head down at school to avoid bullies and spends his afternoons reading science fiction books in the library. But everything changes when he finds a scruffy abandoned dog named Flip and befriends the librarian’s daughter, Halley. For the first time, Ben begins to feel like he belongs in his own life.
then everything changes, and suddenly ben is more alone than ever. But with a little help from Halley’s wizard father, Ben discovers his place in the world and learns to see his own magic through the eyes of others.
there they are: 31 of the best high school books about dogs! so many doggos on the covers. Which of these have you read and loved, and which are you looking forward to reading?
more book lists
- summer books for tweens
- middle grade friendship books
- middle grade books about large families (and small ones too!)
many thanks to our sponsor kelsey kagan and her new picture book about embracing our differences, osa: a curiously different dog, also perfect for dog lovers! you can buy a copy here. thank you for supporting the authors and brands that keep reading on medium grade.
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