83 pages • 2 hours read
Gordon KormanNo More Dead Dogs
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Wallace Wallace, the primary point-of-view character and protagonist of No More Dead Dogs, introduces himself by telling a story his dad told him years ago about fighting in the Vietnam War. As Wallace got older, he realized his dad didn’t fight in the war and that his father tends to lie. The lies were a source of great strife between his parents, and Wallace countered the lies with the attitude of “the more Dad lied, the more I told the truth” (2). Ever since he was a little kid, he’s told the truth, even when it wasn’t nice.
Wallace’s parents got divorced three years before the story begins, and Wallace has not lied in those three years. For eighth-grade English, his class reads the fictional novel Old Shep, My Pal by Zack Paris. The teacher assigns a short essay where students should write how they felt about the book, their favorite character and part, and describe how they’d recommend the book. Wallace writes how he disliked everything about the book and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, which infuriates his teacher, Mr. Fogelman.
Mr. Fogelman loves the book and seeks support from the other students, who ask why the book had to be sad. Mr. Fogelman agrees, saying the ending was a surprise. Wallace argues that he saw the dog’s death coming because “the dog always dies” (5). Mr. Fogelman reluctantly admits Wallace has a point after the class sites several books where dogs die at the end, and he gives Wallace detention, where he will rewrite his report.
After school, Wallace goes to football practice, where he is hailed as being the best player on the team for fixing a play that Steve Cavanaugh, team captain and Wallace’s ex-best friend, messed up last year. In truth, Wallace spends most of his time on the bench but got put in at the end of a game and scored one touchdown that won his team the championship. The team is annoyed when Wallace has to leave to go to detention. Wallace talks them into helping paint his garage after practice so that they have time to work on a new play for tomorrow’s game. The team begrudgingly agrees, and Wallace goes to detention.
Chapter 2 Summary
Chapter 2 is narrated by Rachel Turner, president of the drama club. She has wanted to be an actor since third grade and spends her free time writing letters to famous actors—her latest to Julia Roberts. In addition to being an English teacher, Mr. Fogelman also directs the school play, which is an adaptation of Old Shep, My Pal. Mr. Fogelman enters play practice with Wallace, which causes a rush of reactions from the theater kids—everything from amazement to fear. Rachel’s friend Trudi Davis thinks Wallace is cute while one of the male students laments how if the sports kids start doing theater, “there’ll be nothing left for us” (13).
Rachel introduces herself to Wallace and is immediately turned off by his desire not to be there and dislike of the play. The cast reads through the script. Sitting next to Rachel, Wallace writes another negative review. Rachel gets distracted at how mean he’s being and misses her line. She blames Wallace, and Mr. Fogelman reads the review, which is more of a scathing plot summary. He announces Wallace will attend play practice as detention until he completes the assignment.
Chapters 1-2 Analysis
The opening chapters of No More Dead Dogs introduce the main characters and their conflicts. Wallace’s total honesty about Old Shep, My Pal sparks the argument between him and Mr. Fogelman, which persists through much of the book. While Wallace’s review of the book is not positive, it does follow the assignment guidelines. Korman makes it easy to empathize with Wallace’s plight both because the telling of the incident is from Wallace’s perspective and because Mr. Fogelman’s bias is obvious. Even though Wallace garners support from his classmates, Mr. Fogelman unfairly punishes Wallace. Wallace’s refusal to lie locks him and Mr. Fogelman in a cycle of punishment that allows for the main action of the novel; this conflict exposes Wallace to the play and actors, which become the foundational thread of the plot.
Korman, through his character Wallace, makes a comical point about a common trope of coming-of-age novels that involve dogs: The dog usually dies at the end. Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, and Sounder are just a few classic examples that follow this trope. It’s such a common phenomenon that Goodreads contributors have created a “cautionary list” for readers who are sensitive to books of this nature. Wallace’s argument is validated by real-world experience, solidifying the reader’s empathy.
Wallace’s position within the football team shows how an isolated incident can promote untruths. Wallace isn’t even close to the best player on the team, but his winning touchdown brands him as the linchpin of the team. His teammates, with the exception of Cavanaugh, believe they can’t win without him, and that belief becomes reality as the team loses game after game. Wallace leaving practice to go to detention is the catalyst for the book’s external conflicts: the football team’s struggles, the changes to the play, and Dylan trying to sabotage the performance so Wallace will return to the football team.
Rachel starts writing letters to Julia Roberts in Chapter 2 to organize her emotions and give the reader a glimpse into her interiority. This additional perspective allows the reader to view Wallace as others view him. We learn that Wallace’s arrival at rehearsal upends Rachel’s worldview, and this foreshadows more interactions between the characters later in the novel.
The other theater kids aren’t thrilled with Wallace’s presence because they see him as a threat to their “place” in the world. While it’s clear that athletes dominate the social order at this school, it’s not certain yet that Wallace will excel at anything theatrical. Korman references the idea that in American education, sports are often placed above other extracurricular activities. The performing arts are stereotypically the place where misfits go to find their uniqueness in a shared activity. By contrast, sports bring together kids with a similar skillset. In truth, both theater and sports involve people using their individual talents to work together and produce something, but the societal separation of the two activities impacts the students’ perspectives of one another. This is a boundary that Rachel and Wallace must cross in their efforts to improve the play.
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