D-39

Twelve-year-old Klynt Tovis enjoys tinkering with and restoring gadgets.

She lives with her father on their family farm in a war-torn country where the greedy, violent, and unjust actions of warring factions have resulted in a time of scarcity and fear. Klynt’s only company when school is out is her father and, occasionally, her neighbor’s young son, Jopa. That is, until the day when a D-39 robodog—a realistic dog robot—turns up on her farm. Klynt and D-39 soon become inseparable. After a bomb forces them into their underground bunker for 21 days, Klynt and her father emerge to discover a world destroyed by violence. They head out for rations but end up separating when Klynt decides to stay back with Jopa, whom they discover all alone. After three days without word from her father, Klynt realizes that something must be wrong and that she must take charge. She sets out with D-39 and Jopa on a journey to find their families and, hopefully, salvation. Latham uses an invented lexicon of delightfully creative and expressive hybrid words—jinglesnap, boomblasts, itchglitchy—to tell this tale of a girl and her dog sticking together through illness, pain, and near-death experiences. This is an appealing story for animal-loving readers seeking a slow-paced, atmospheric adventure story. Human characters read as White by default.

A girl-meets-dog story of hope, perseverance, and survival.