STRAYDOG Hardcover, 112 Pages Frances Foster Books April 2002 ISBN 0374372789

[C]ompelling and sympathetic...In telling her story, Koja plumbs not only Rachel's dark and darkly funny psyche, but also what it means to be human and to make connections of love and trust. -- Publishers Weekly A searing, beautiful book...Strong characters, rich detail, and well-articulated emotions, interspersed with Rachel's startling writing, make a powerful story. -- Booklist A dog story that isn't sappy...Koja gets the smart-loner-artist-girl stuff just right. -- The Horn Book Weighing in at just over one hundred pages, this slim tome nevertheless packs a powerful emotional wallop. Koja's short, choppy sentences where both girl and Grrl snarl and snap at the world are well executed and inventive. Take this Straydog home from the pound immediately. -- Amazon 2007 YALSA Popular Paperback Winner of the Humane Society's KIND Book Award Winner of the ASPCA's Henry Bergh Award A BOOK SENSE 76 Top Ten Summer Teen Reads pick A selection of the Junior Library Guild A selection of the Children's Literature Choice List for 2003 Reviewed in the spring issue of The Bark magazine. Excerpt from Straydog     "So what's up with that collie?"     Melissa's at her desk, an old-fashioned school teacher's desk, dented metal drawers and heaping piles of junk: fund-raising appeals, cruelty investigation forms, food orders, a busted leash tagged DON'T BUY THIS KIND!!! At the center of the heap is the brand-new computer, the one new thing in the place, a donation from some distributor. Now Melissa scrabbles like Shiva through the mess, hunting for "The pen," she says to herself, "where is the pen ?" and then to me "What collie?" She gives me the major Melissa-stare, her wide blue eyes like What! do! you! want! Her hair's really, really short and blonde, she gels it so it sticks up like porcupine quills. "You mean the one Jake brought in?"     "Yeah. Grrl." It was what I called her, writing last night in my paper; it fit, it's just right but "The feral one, you named her?" and she rolls her eyes. "Rachel, before you start, stop, all right? She's been all her life on the streets, you know what they're like when they're --"     "I know, I know." You can almost never socialize the feral ones, they're almost always euthanized .I've seen dozens of dogs, and fallen in love with half of them, and cried my heart out when they died; that's how it is here. But this one is different, somehow. There's something about her, something in her eyes, I can't stop thinking about her: as if I know what she's like, know her from the inside out. And I have a plan for her, or at least the plan for a plan so "I just want to try," I say to Melissa, "just get to know her a little. And it won't interfere with my work schedule, I'll still do all my regular stuff --"     "I don't have time -- there you are! -- to argue with you now," she says, snatching up her pen. "Go away. Go talk to the dogs," which I do, sweep and swab and water and feed, all the while sneaking little looks at Grrl in her cage lying on a blue blanket, one of the old torn-up blankets from the rescue van. Her eyes are half-closed, cloudy; the cage card says she's got a fever from the leg infection. When I reach to put the card back she growls at me, that ripping, ugly sound: Don't mess with me , that growl says. I may be in a cage but I can still bite.     So I start talking like I always do, to all the dogs -- hey you guys, how's it going -- but once in awhile I say "Grrl", looking into her eyes, making sure she knows it's meant for her. "Grrl, Grrl," almost like her growl but warm and crooning, the name and the idea came to me like a gift last night as I sat looking over the essay, two gifts at once because I'm going to write about that dog, I thought, about Grrl and from "A Dog's Life" I changed the title to "straydog," all one word, like a dog would think of herself.     And once I'd done that the words just, just flew , it was like I couldn't write fast enough. It was like I knew her, knew how she would think and feel and fear, knew it all from the inside out and when I finally stopped writing -- not done, only just started but my hand was hot and aching, and my eyes were as dry as little rubber balls -- I felt so good, so full , I don't know how else to explain it; like I'd eaten at a banquet, like I was a banquet. -- Oh, that's not it either, how can words say exactly what you want sometimes and sometimes nothing at all?