My Fox Ate My Alarm Clock is an animal story written by David Blaze. It was Friday morning, and Joe didn’t really feel at all good about being in school. He was waiting for Sam, who was sitting behind him and blowing spitballs into his hair, to get revenge for Joe’s part in getting Sam’s friend, the school bully, Shane, in trouble. Then Coach Brown announced that he wanted the class to do pull-ups. Joe had never done a pull-up in his life. After seeing the some of the girls in the class doing 2 or 3, and Joe’s friend, Melissa, pumping out an awesome 4, Joe wondered if he’d be able to do any at all. Just as Joe was getting ready to jump up for the pull-up bars, Shane walked in. He seemed taller than ever, and Joe’s mind raced back to the last time he saw Shane when the police were taking him away. Shane easily did nine pull-ups and went over to the bleachers where he sat with Sam and started talking. The class’s attention was all on Joe as he approached the bars. He grabbed them and begin to pull himself up. Joe was relieved at completing the first one, and he found that speeding up his movements made the second, third and fourth a bit easier. But the pull-ups kept on coming, one after the other as the class watched awestruck and Coach Brown shouted out with enthusiasm. After the twentieth pull-up, Joe dropped down to the gym floor. He could do it. He wasn’t the biggest weakling in class after all. But Joe’s day was not over yet -- he had even bigger challenges than Shane and the pull-up bars yet to face.

David Blaze’s humorous animal story for children and preteens, My Fox Ate My Alarm Clock, is the third book in Blaze’s My Fox series. While you can read this one on its own and have a grand time doing so, I would strongly recommend reading the preceding two books: My Fox Ate My Homework and My Fox Ate My Cake. The three books are extraordinarily good reads and are loads of fun, even if it’s been some time since you fell into the age category listed, and the first two do a marvelous job of exploring the close and growing relationship Joe and his fox share. As with the other books, there’s suspense, action and all manner of excitement in My Fox Ate My Alarm Clock, not least of which is the badly battered alarm clock that fails to wake Joe up in time for church. Blaze’s plot is first-rate, and his characters and the way they interact makes this series one of the best preteen offerings out there. My Fox Ate My Alarm Clock is most highly recommended.