about the book
After her grandmother dies, ten-year-old Zelda “Zelly” Fried and her parents move from Brooklyn to Vermont to live with her Grandpa Ace. Everything about the move is a shock: in Brooklyn Zelly had grown up with kids of many different nationalities and skin color; in Vermont everyone seems to have blonde hair and blue eyes. What’s more, everyone in the new neighborhood seems to have a dog.
Zelly has been trying for years to convince her parents to get her a dog, but they have always resisted, giving the old, tired line that it would be too much responsibility for her.
One morning Zelly wakes up to find an empty plastic orange juice jug next to her bed, decorated as if it were a dog. On the jug is a note from Grandpa Ace, saying that the jug can be a practice dog, one which Zelly will feed and clean up after, proving to her parents that she is responsible enough to handle a dog.
Even though she thinks the plan is stupid, Zelly names the orange juice jug O.J., and starts taking care of it….
about the author
Erica S. Perl grew up in Burlington, Vermont, which is where she set her middle-grade novel When Life Gives You O.J. When it comes to the kinds of stories she likes to write, she has been called an “accomplished and versatile” writer. Her books range from children’s picture books to middle-grade novels.
Today Erica lives in Washington, D.C., where she writes her stories along with far, far too many emails.
Source:
Author website
Author biography : Goodreads
Also by Erica S. Perl:
Aces Wild. Knopf Books for Young Readers. 2013.
read more!
Aces Wild by Erica S. Perl
Since Zelly has shown with O.J. the jug dog that she can be responsible and take care of a real dog, her parents finally relent. With the help of Grandpa Ace, they find Zelly a dog to take care of. The dog, it turns out, also becomes named Ace, and the two Aces seem to get along well—except that Ace the dog is seemingly impossible to train!
The Dog Days of Charlotte Hayes by Marlane Kennedy
Charlotte is not a dog person, but she must take care of Beauregard, her family’s Saint Bernard, since the rest of the family neglects him. No one else fills his water dish, and he has to stay outside chained to his much-too-small doghouse. Charlotte decides that Beauregard deserves a better life, so she sets out to find him one.
Little Dog, Lost by Marion Dane Bauer
Mark’s friends all have dogs, but not him. Buddy is a young dog whose owner doesn’t know how to play with her properly. And there is an old man, Mr. LaRue, who needs anyone who would come to visit him in his lonely old house. Perhaps the fates will connect these three—perhaps through a thunderstorm…