PAWS vs SCAMPS
PAWS: The Trouble with Leo
by Nathan Fairbairn (illustrated by Michele Assarasakorn)
Toronto: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, 2026
$17.99 / 9780593695852
Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic
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About midway through the 170 pages of “The Trouble with Leo,” the fifth book of the PAWS graphic novel series for kids that Vancouver-based writer Nathan Fairbairn and illustrator Michele Assarasakorn began in 2022 with PAWS: Gabby Gets It Together, I realized I wasn’t enjoying it all that much.
The tone of the storytelling struck me as a bit sour, closer in spirit to HBO’s grey-toned Succession than Hanna-Barbera’s vivid Scooby-Doo.
I confess I’m clueless as to what 8-12-year-olds, the book’s intended audience, find irresistible in a story, but I have my doubts that underhanded business competition and frequent argumentative confrontations between representatives of two rivalrous pet-walking companies would make the top ten.
In the story, entrenched personal enmity between two ex-friends transforms into escalating hurtful business actions spearheaded by two stubborn alpha types who tend to push their underlings around.
Of course, the closing pages of “The Trouble with Leo” highlight epiphanies, personal growth, and reconciliation. Still, for well over half of the book tensions mount and quarrels erupt as this pair of strong-willed—a quick to anger—juvenile entrepreneurs duke it out.
For a series described by its publisher as “the Baby-Sitters Club for pets!” the story is notably stingy with the levity and joy.
At headstrong protagonist Gabby’s birthday party a few years earlier, her close-ish classmate Leo showed up with a gift. Leo also left early, gift in hand. Misunderstandings that day led to mutual hurt feeling, which hardened into mutual dislike and retaliatory spitefulness.
In the present day, Gabby and her all-girl BFFs are in a park in East Vancouver with an outgoing pack of dogs when they run into Leo. After a moment of friendliness, the scene turns dark. Gabby baits Leo, Leo responds with a threat, and before long Leo and his all-boy buddies have formed SCAMPS, a business endeavour that’s successful in its primary design to antagonize Gabby.
In short order, a territorial dispute inspires rate undercutting, defaced posters, forged reviews, deceptive advertising, and so on. It ain’t pretty.
With the reappearance of former PAWS walker Priya, who has moved out of the neighbourhood, even tempers start to prevail.
Plus, Hazel recounts an episode from one of the fantasy novels of Gabby’s dad (which allows illustrator Michele Assarasakorn to switch from a field of pastel shades to saturated reds, blues, and purples that draw the eye to her rich images of an elf quest in a goblin cave).
“What does any of that have to do with Leo, Hazel,” Gabby asks angrily. “Nobody thinks they’re the bad guy in their own story,” Hazel replies. Though Gabby is not receptive to the information then, it does eventually sink in.
At that point, though, the target audience will have spent over 100 pages witnessing the hotheaded—and not particularly likeable—Gabby and Leo urge (if not bully) their mild-mannered friends to ratchet up the PAWS vs. SCAMPS business rivalry. That audience just might be drawn into the girls versus the boys dynamic. It’s hard to say.
As for me—who might have grown a bit weary of our new-conflict-100%-guaranteed world—by the time Gabby posts inflammatory reviews of Leo’s business, I pined for an adorable but missing Dachshund and the adventure that would ensue as the girls searched for it.
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Brett Josef Grubisic assigns, edits, and posts fiction, poetry, and children’s lit reviews for BCR; occasionally, he contributes reviews as well. [He’s written about recent books by Otoniya Bitek, Martin Butler, Hannah Beach and Maggie Hutchings, Zsuzsi Gartner (ed.), Jennifer Cooper, Caroline Adderson, Sunny Dhillon, Wanda John-Kehewin, Ryan O’Dowd, Michael V. Smith, David Bouchard, Alice Turski, Louise Sidley, K.J. Denny (ed.), Sonali Zohra, Carrie Anne Vanderhoop, Kristen Pendreigh, Sam Wiebe, Maureen Young, Daniel Anctil, and Adam Welch for BCR.]
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors: Trevor Marc Hughes (nonfiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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