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 3-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary
Wallace goes to the football game on Saturday only to learn he can’t play while he’s on detention. The captain is irritated, and Cavanaugh secretly enjoys Wallace’s distress. Dejected, Wallace leaves, unable to believe he can’t play “just because I wasn’t psyched about Old Shep, My Pal” (24). He considers lying and writing a good review of the book, but remembering his dad’s lies, he can’t bring himself to do it.
Wallace’s school loses the game, and a swarm of angry students is in front of the building Monday. Wallace climbs in a bathroom window only to find Cavanaugh there. Cavanaugh found out why Wallace is in detention and goads Wallace about Old Shep, My Pal. The president of the school newspaper, Parker Schmidt, bursts into the bathroom and demands the truth from Wallace. Wallace tries to evade talking to the kid, but Cavanaugh spills Wallace’s secret about detention and how he has an incomplete grade in English. The next issue of the school newspaper features an article titled “Gimme an A or I Won’t Play!” (31), detailing how Wallace refuses to play football unless Mr. Fogelman passes him.
Chapter 4 Summary
When Rachel arrives at rehearsal after school on Monday, the wooden board where the set will be painted is on the stage, and someone wrote “Old Shep, Dead Mutt” across it (32). Wallace says he had nothing to do with it. Rachel doesn’t believe him, especially after reading the article in the school newspaper, and she’s devastated that Wallace would disrespect the play, writers, and actors that way.
Wallace hands in a paper to Mr. Fogelman in which he details 11 reasons he dislikes Old Shep, My Pal. Mr. Fogelman argues the first point—that the characters don’t feel realistic. Wallace calls out the old-fashioned and redundant dialogue of the play, suggesting one of the kids should replace “Great heavens, this dog has suffered an injury!” with something more modern (34-35). The kid playing that character likes Wallace’s idea, and Mr. Fogelman begrudgingly changes the line.
Later, Rachel writes another letter to Julia Roberts complaining about Wallace. She can’t decide what’s more annoying—Wallace making suggestions about the play or that his suggestions “are actually (it kills me to say this) pretty good” (39).
Chapter 5 Summary
Trudi Davis, Rachel’s best friend, is convinced she (Trudi) is in love with Wallace, and she takes a pole in a teen magazine to make sure she understands her feelings. The questions feel too vague for her emotions, and she thinks about how Wallace makes play practice and the play itself so much better with his suggestions for different lines.
Rachel argues that Trudi is making a fool of herself, and that Wallace doesn’t care about the play. When Trudi tries to convince Rachel that Wallace is helping, Rachel warns her that “just because he’s killing time on his detention doesn’t make him one of us” (44). Trudi plans to stand up for Wallace at the next rehearsal, but when she arrives, all of the tech equipment has been tied into a knot with the curtain wires at center stage. Everyone is sure Wallace did it.
Chapters 3-5 Analysis
The article published in the school newspaper and its aftermath symbolize how news media can be misleading, sometimes intentionally. Though neither Wallace nor Cavanaugh say Wallace refuses to play football unless Mr. Fogelman passes him, the reporter twists words to make it sound as if he did. “Gimme an A or I Won’t Play!” is a clickbait-style article headline. The football team’s reputation is a topic of contention at school, and the inflammatory nature of the article’s title is designed to gain readers, despite that the reported “facts” are untrue.
This dishonest reporter emphasizes Wallace’s most distinct trait: his brute honesty. As the novel progresses, more and more characters will reveal small dishonesties, such as Rachel’s revelation that Wallace’s ideas are actually good in her letters, but her refusal to admit as much to her friends. These moments contrast Wallace’s ideals and develop themes around the complex nature of honesty.
The painted set board and tangled equipment in Chapters 4 and 5 are Dylan’s first attempts to destroy the play and get Wallace back on the football team. Rachel’s response to the incidents shows how untruths from a trusted source (like newspapers) can cause people to form false opinions. Wallace didn’t paint the board or tangle the wires, but Rachel wants to believe he did because of her own bias against him. She uses the article as confirmation bias, accepting only information that aligns with her beliefs. As she says to her friend Trudi, Wallace’s involvement in the play “doesn’t make him one of us” (44). This quote indicates that she still sees Wallace as different from herself, and it establishes the set-point from which her character will grow. By the end of the novel, Rachel will come to realize that she and Wallace aren’t so different after all.
Chapter 4 is the first chapter from Trudi’s point of view. Trudi is characterized as unsophisticated, and her focus on nail polish and magazines feels distanced from the rest of the story. Her perspective offers a rounded glimpse into middle schoolers and their interests, and she contrasts Rachel, who has clear ambitions and direction. Trudi also develops themes concerning the complexity of truth by relying on teen magazines to make her decisions. While Rachel is reliant on a school newspaper to color her opinion of Wallace, Trudi is reliant on a teen magazine quiz. Both resources are disreputable in this case, and this further develops the motif of unreliable media resources.
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