You Can't Take Twenty Dogs on a Date

by Betty Cavanna

When Jo is forced to give up her plans for college, she opens a boarding kennel for dogs.

Genres: Young Adult

178 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

American juvenile author (full name: Elizabeth Allen) Betty Cavanna suffered from a crippling disease, infantile paralysis, as a child, which she eventually overcame with treatment and exercise. During her convalescence, attentive adults read to her until she was old enough to read to herself, beginning a long love affair with books.

Cavanna majored in journalism at the New Jersey College for Women in New Brunswick, from where she received the Bachelor of Letters degree in 1929. She also took art classes in New York and Philadelphia. Cavanna's first job was as a reporter for the Bayonne Times. In 1931 she joined the staff of the Westminster Press in Philadelphia and over the next ten years served as advertising manager and art director. She also wrote and sold material to Methodist and Baptist publishing firms. In 1940 she married Edward Talman Headley, with whom she had a son. They moved to Philadelphia. After her husband's death, she married George Russell Harrison, a university dean of science, as well as nonfiction writer, in 1957. He died in 1979.

Cavanna became a full-time writer in 1941. Since then she has written more than seventy books under the name of Betty Cavanna as well as two pseudonyms: Betsy Allen, under which she wrote the "Connie Blair Mystery" series, and Elizabeth Headley, under which she wrote several books, including the Diane stories. As Betty Cavanna she also published the nonfiction "Around the World Today" about young people living in various countries.

Cavanna's juvenile fiction, about the difficulties of adolescenc, appealed to generations of teenage girls. Her characters confronted loneliness, sibling rivalries, divorce, and tense mother-daughter relationships. Her books, although characterized as pleasant, conventional, and stereotyped, have been extremely popular and recommended by critics for their attention to subjects which have reflected girls' interests. Going on Sixteen and Secret Passage were Spring Book Festival honor books in 1946 and 1947.

In the 1970s Cavanna turned to writing mysteries, which she termed "escape fiction," because she said she felt out of sync with the problems of modern teenagers. Two of her books have been runners-up for the Edgar Allan Poe Award: Spice Island Mystery in 1970 and the Ghost of Ballyhooly in 1972.

She died in France (2001).

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was about 8 years old, a neighbor gave me some books that her adult daughter had left behind. One of these was the Betty Cavanna title Spurs for Suzanna, a tale about an 11 or 12 year old city girl who loved horses and spent a summer learning about them (and about Real Life) with a country family. I read this book umptey-eleven number of times over the years. It became my go-to feel-good read if I was sad or sick or just feeling out of step with the world.

But in all my years of prowling through used book shops and library sales, I never saw another Cavanna title, so until the last few days I had never read any other book by this prolific author. Cavanna began writing novels in 1941. Spurs was published in 1947, with You Can't Take 20 Dogs On A Date appearing for the first time in 1949 with the title She's My Girl!. My edition was from 1977 with the new title. And at least one obvious tweak, because I very greatly doubt that there were any such creatures as Volkswagen Rabbits around in 1949. (I just checked in the interest of obsessiveness and the Rabbit/Golf was first produced in 1974.)

It can be tricky rereading a childhood favorite as an adult, but it can also be tricky reading another book by an author who impressed you as much as this one had with Spurs. The danger of comparing new book to old favorite is huge and of course at first I fell into that trap. I didn't like Jo as much as I thought I should. She was 17, fresh out of high school, and disappointed that she was not going to be able to head off to college right away because of her father's illness. So she decides that she needs some sort of summer job....but what? Well, there are those empty dog kennels in the back of the family property, and the town veterinarian is a close family friend, so why not start a boarding kennel?

Great idea, a much needed service, plenty of business due to referrals from the vet friend, but what does Jo's new career do to her social life? Or to her family life? Or to her own maturing process? Cavanna's books, according to her GR author page, ". . .appealed to generations of teenage girls. Her characters confronted loneliness, sibling rivalries, divorce, and tense mother-daughter relationships. Her books, although characterized as pleasant, conventional, and stereotyped, have been extremely popular and recommended by critics for their attention to subjects which have reflected girls' interests."

Of course I don't remember any annoyances with Spurs For Susanna, but this book made me cringe a few times. Jo's best friend is devastated that they will not be rooming together in college. She is worried whatever roommate she ends up with might be a fat girl who gets care packages full of treats sent from home every week, because "you know how I gain if I even look at anything fattening". And one of the gang of friends, a boy named Chuck, is described as so stout he is almost obese, with Jo at a later point realizing that she had always just thought of him as her funny fat friend, nothing more. I think we have all known someone like that; perhaps remembering the 'funny fat friend' from my own teenage years was actually what made me uncomfortable here.

I had to remind myself other times that Jo was only 17. I expected her to be much more sure of herself but she blanks out when being given advice about how to calculate feeding costs per dog because it is math, you know. And sometimes she feels very much unable to do anything until she learns that the only option is to just jump in and DO THE BEST YOU CAN. I am much farther away from my teenage years than I was when I first read Cavanna, so it did take me awhile to connect with our Jo, but I ended up liking her a lot and happy with the way her world turned out.

But still, she's not Suzanna.

[Stephanie Fitzgerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

The publication date was given as 1977, but the content was more 50’s or 60’s. This would be an interesting book for girls wanting to learn more about their grandmother’s or great-grandma’s experiences growing up. The antiquated attitudes towards women getting college scholarships, working as vets or doctors, and the rules for dating would need much explanation from older adults!
I grabbed this one for the “dog parts”, and those were the best ones.

[Stephanie A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A super darling and wonderful book that feels at least a decade older than its publication*. What better summer story could there be than a recent high school graduate deciding to fix up the abandoned kennels on her family's property and turn them into a boarding kennel? Particularly if it's in a magical time and place where all you need is gumption, your veterinarian uncle's good word and a surplus of local dogs in need of boarding, nothing pesky like licenses or experience.

Delivers exactly what the summary promises, with tons of dog interaction, and only a little hint of romance on the side. Particularly charming was "Suzy Beagle," a dog dropped off with orders to "destroy this annoying stray we found hanging around our fancy poodle," which Jo obviously eschews in favor of "make her my pet."

I'm still pretty concerned by the lack of owner follow-up on the fact that her failure to secure some loose wire resulted in a Cocker Spaniel charge cutting its eye (cut for unpleasant injury), but otherwise, it was just wonderful. I was charmed from the first paragraph by the picture of the old-fashioned small town it painted:

Brett's Pharmacy was the teen hangout. Almost every summer afternoon, the stools at the long counter were filled with girls and boys in sawed-off jeans. Jo Redmond and Ginny Clark felt that they were really getting a little too sophisticated to rub elbows with the high school crowd, but dropping in at Brett's for soft drinks had become a habit.

*there's a note on the inside cover: "this work is a major revision of an earlier publication entitled She's My Girl (c) 1949, Elizabeth Headley." I'd be interested to read that one as well to see the comparisons.

[Thalia Lemon]

The book was fine, I guess. I was 13, so hell if I know. I would probably read garbage and love it at that age, as long as there was a dog or a cat or a horse or something involved.

Someone stole this book out of my locker, and I was unable to return it to the library. At the end of the school year when our librarian went to each class to remind us to return our remaining books, imagine how humiliated 13 year old skinny awkward girl like myself would be when she read aloud the title,

"You Can't Take Twenty Dogs on a Date"

The entire class laughed.

I may not remember the book very well, but I remember the burning shame. It made me the dateless dog loving woman I am today.

[Philippa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of old-fashioned cuteness and I love it

[Crystal Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a sweet and simple novel. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Love that the romance element of this story kind of takes a backseat which is different to a lot of books I've read lately.

Review maybe later..

[Annette]

Loved it!