Bored Bill by Liz Pichon

This is a great science fiction book that is geared towards males and females because it features a dog going into space. This book is funny and imaginative right off the bat because the dog not only is able to talk to his owner, but has a bitter personality that never wants to do anything. He thinks that everything the owner wants to do with him is completely boring. When he is out on a walk with his owner, they are both gusted off their feet by the wind. He is blasted into space and becomes very excited because he thinks that space will not be boring at all. Bill's facial expressions and personality completely change because he is excited to explore and experience fun things. I like that the author does little exerts of what is happening with his owner back on earth. The author shows that Bill is yelling about the gross alien food and how boring their lives are, by putting certain words in all caps. Bill realizes that his owner was right that you have to do things in order to have fun. He tries to do the things with the boring aliens that his owner likes to do. Bill realizes that he really miss his owner and goes back to earth to do fun activities with her. I really like that the last page shows the aliens sitting down to dinner with Bill and his owners. The book is a great way to teach kids that in order to have fun, they have to try new things and have a positive attitude. This book would probably be aimed towards grades 1-3 because it only contains a few challenging words here and there.