Book Review: Maxi 's Secrets (deaf puppy, middle school, boy, blind friend, bullying)

Maxi’s Secrets (Or, What You Can Learn From a Dog), by Lynn Plourde (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2016, 263 pages, $18.99, grades 4-6)

A Sleeper that Just Woke up!

Published way back in 2016, Maxi’s Secret is currently a huge hit at our local book superstore and in so much demand that our county library has a long waiting list – all of the 15 copies are checked out with 15 kids ‘waiting in line’!

The Cover Hooked Us Here at DogEvals

They say you can’t tell a book by its cover – but you actually can – sometimes, and this is one of those ‘sometimes.’

Inside the front cover are two pages of paw prints while inside the back cover are two pages of kid footprints, probably belonging to a boy. Maybe Timiny. Yes, Timiny or, as some kids call him, Minny.

Maxi’s face graces the cover of Maxi’s Secrets so the reader knows this book is about a dog, a white dog. But what are Maxi’s secrets?

The Plot – Typically Boy, with Girls, Too.

First of all, Lynn Plourdes has written a book about middle school. Remember middle school and how hard it was with all those new kids? And if you are a kid, you may be dreading middle school. And what if you are a short kid and what if you are bullied? How will you ever get through middle school in one piece?

Maxi’s Secrets is written from the viewpoint of a new kid in 5^th grade (complete with farts). The family has just moved to a small town from Portland (and, of course, this reviewer thought Oregon at first, not Maine), his father is the assistant principal of his school, and our little ‘author’ is promised a dog to help the transition.

Maxi is about bullying (and pushing a kid into his locker and locking it from the outside and walking away – several times) and how it can stop (but it seems to go on forever), about a dog being a boy’s best friend and a boy being a dog’s best friend, about a deaf puppy and a blind girl, about how non-friends can turn around and become friends, about bigger kids, about death and cancer and getting lost in the woods, about kids becoming wiser than adults, and about a dog being a hero in more ways than one. Some situations are guessable while others remain a surprise even to adult readers.

Maxi, the Puppy

Maxi turns out to be a deaf Great Pyrenees, a great big white dog, but she never realizes she is deaf and by the time the family finds out, they are in love with her – so much that they take her to training classes where she excels. “. . . just because Maxi was deaf , it didn’t mean she couldn’t learn to follow directions.” (p.58)

Maxi is even fitted with a ‘pager collar’ so she will feel a vibration when someone is calling her name. What a great idea!

Not Really a Spoiler

Plourde begins her book with:

“Let’s get this part over with – it’s no secret.

My dog, Maxi, dies.”

Just like Marley and Sounder and Old Yeller, the puppy dies in the end but Maxi is a book that is so worth reading that you will recover from this news and just remember the hero actions and the anti-bullying solution. There is so much in this book to talk about and learn from. And it’s even fun to boot!

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Dear Dog Book Author

As a dog trainer, I encourage the entire family to attend training classes (not just one person, as you permit in your book) and it would have been great to include some information on the service dog organization (Mira) that plays such a big part in Maxi  like you include about the website, Deaf Dogs Rock. Ms Plourdes did a good job of depicting blind kids and, overall, of middle school.