Injustice

The novel uses the personification of Bob and the other animals to highlight injustices within our society. To lay the stage for the argument, much attention is paid to how amazing animals are. As this is a middle-grade book, there is an element of teaching children fun facts about pets, but the novel also aims to show that just because animals are different than people, this does not mean that they are worth any less. Bob tells readers many amazing facts about dogs: “Dogs are experts at odor. Students of stink. We analyze the air the way humans read poetry, searching for invisible truths” (40). Noses are compared to minds here, and we are meant to see the qualities of animals being just as impressive as the qualities of humans, in the hopes that we might one day treat them equally.

The novel compares speciesism to others...