After his parents die in a car crash, 10th-grader Ted is placed in foster care. He is sent to live with the Rafter family, where he gains two foster brothers: C.W. and Astin. Although his new home is only six miles from where he grew up, it feels light years away from his previous life. Ted’s birth parents ran a small pet shop and he often believed they cared more for the animals than they did for him; at his old school, his social awkwardness left him friendless. But while Ted finds the Rafters themselves to be a bit odd (Mrs. Rafter keeps a doll in her bedroom, unable to recover from the loss of a child), his new foster brothers like him, especially Astin, a talented mechanic, who mentors him on being more outgoing and approachable. Ted’s attempts to come to terms with both his parents’ death and his new life are aided by his ability to communicate with animals, which often serves as a source of comfort. A sparrow encourages him to “think about something else,” and a lion at the zoo suggests, “What you need, Theodore, is a pride. If you can get some females to hunt for you, that’s all the better.” Readers will root for Ted as he learns how to feel comfortable both around other people and in his own skin. Using deft touches of humor and an element of the supernatural, Koertge (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Boy Girl Boy) delivers a stirring account of a boy’s rise above difficult circumstances. Ages 14-up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(June)

Sixteen-year-old Ted prefers animals to humans; animals "never lie," and unlike the kids at school, he understands them. When Ted loses his parents in a car accident, he particularly identifies with strays ter all, as a foster kid, that's what he is. Ted lands in a new home, where his basic needs are met by fair but semi-dysfunctional foster parents and where he coexists with Astin, his older roommate, and C. W., who has had 19 placements in six years. Ted also starts a new school, and with Astin and C. W. at his back, he learns to express himself and to rely upon people as well as animals. Ted's two-way conversations with animals may initially surprise readers, but this magic realism effectively emphasizes his emotional withdrawal, and his outsider's observations of human nature are by turns insightful, devastatingly funny, and suffused with loneliness. Though Koertge never soft pedals the horrors experienced by some foster children, this thoughtful novel about the lost and abandoned is a hopeful one, in which some strays find a place to belong.

Twenty years after the events of Eager, self-aware robots have been banned and Eager lives in hiding with his human "sister." Every summer he visits the Bells; this time, the visit includes the unexpected addition of Eager's stowaway "nephew." Much comedic territory is mined by the robots' unfamiliarity with human habits. The fun is marked with questions of morality and identity.

Sixteen-year-old Ted's new to foster care, but not new to being unwanted. In his old high school, he was bullied, and his now-dead parents cared more about the animals they sold than they ever cared about their own son. At first, his new foster home seems like it will be just another terrible time in Ted's life. Foster-father Mr. Rafter is mildly racist, while Mrs. Rafter likes to breast feed a plastic doll. There's nobody Ted can communicate with, except the animals he's always been able to speak with: dogs, cats, the giraffe at the zoo. But against all of his expectations, Ted starts to make friends with his foster brothers at the Rafter's, and with a few girls at school. Ted's life is far from perfect, but maybe he can rely on someone other than animals at last. The development of Ted, the slightly unreliable narrator—from sullen self-sufficient teen to tentative social animal—is heartwarmingly real, and the light magical touch adds a clever flavor to this appealing coming-of-age story. (Fiction. 13-15)

Gr 7-10 Ted O'Connor, 15, grew up working in his parents' pet store until they died in a car crash and he was sent into foster care. He shares an attic bedroom with Astin, who rides a Harley and is alternately paternal and threatening. The other foster kid, C.W., has his own room because Mr. Rafter "[doesn't] like to mix white and black." Ted isolates himself from social situations, preferring to communicate with animals. These creaturesfrom stray dogs to caged lionstalk back. The rub is, as Ted begins to trust human relationships, his gift with animals fades. Koertge writes brilliant dialogue; the conversations between Ted and the animals are as nuanced, natural, and believable as those between humans. The characterizations are subtle and swift, especially Wanda, a senior whose parents win the lottery and virtually abandon her. She's unique from her first words on the page. Ted's slow transformation from introverted destitution to tentative but authentic affirmation is well and economically handled. The novel's initially somber mood lifts, deftly and gradually, as Ted grows surer of his place in humanity. His romantic friendship with warm, intelligent Wanda is beautifully realized and revelatory; having chosen one another, they are no longer strays. This is a great choice for reluctant readers, and for animal lovers. Not a word is wasted, and this tight, smoothly plotted, perfectly pitched novel is among the author's best work. Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library

Sixteen-year-old Ted O'Connor's uncanny ability to communicate with animals compensates for his difficulties socializing with humans, some of which could be attributed to the aroma of his family's pet-store business-"the girls said I smelled like cat pee." For years, Ted helped his mother find homes for an endless parade of abandoned cats and dogs. But when his parents are killed in a car accident, Ted suddenly finds himself on the inside of the human foster care system, as one of numerous "strays" who are assigned to the homes of strangers until they "age out" of the system at eighteen. Koertge is noted for his honest portrayals of outsiders and underdogs in such novels as Stoner and Spaz (Candlewick, 2002/VOYA April 2002). Here the underdogs are both human and canine, and Ted begins to use his extraordinary rapport with his nonhuman friends to gain self-confidence and move beyond depression. When tough-guy Astin, Ted's foster roommate, takes Ted for a spin on his motorcycle, a poodle's timely warning of a policeman on the next block gives Ted a chance to gain points with Astin. Soon Astin's girlfriend is arranging Ted's social life. Ted protests that he is "busy," but Megan is not having it. "Doing what? Being an orphan? How much time does that take?" Koertge has long been renowned for his witty dialogue, and this novel does not disappoint. The themes of human and animal fostering are skillfully intertwined in this funny, fast-paced celebration of the resilience to survive loss and start anew.-Walter Hogan.