Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Playground Bully | 2001 | Barkley’s School for Dogs | Buy |
| 2 | Puppy Trouble | 2001 | Barkley’s School for Dogs | Buy |
| 3 | Top Dog | 2001 | Barkley’s School for Dogs | Buy |
| 4 | Ghost Dog | 2001 | Barkley’s School for Dogs | Buy |
| 5 | Snow Day | 2001 | Barkley’s School for Dogs | Buy |
| 6 | Blue-Ribbon Blues | 2002 | Barkley’s School for Dogs | Buy |
| 7 | Santa Dog | 2002 | Barkley’s School for Dogs | Buy |
| 8 | Sticks and Stones and Doggie Bones | 2002 | Barkley’s School for Dogs | Buy |
| 9 | Buried Treasure | 2002 | Barkley’s School for Dogs | Buy |
| 10 | Tattle Tails | 2002 | Barkley’s School for Dogs | Buy |
| 11 | Puppy Love | 2002 | Barkley’s School for Dogs | Buy |
| 12 | Puppies on Parade | 2003 | Barkley’s School for Dogs | Buy |
Barkley’s School for Dogs was written by Marcia Thornton Jones and Debbie Dadey, the same pair behind The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids. The series launched in June 2001 with Playground Bully and ran for 12 books, concluding with Puppies on Parade in 2003. Each book is a standalone story, following the dog characters through situations that will feel familiar to any child who has spent time in school: conflicts with bullies, unexpected friendships, holiday chaos, and the occasional mystery.
The books are published by Scholastic and illustrated by Amy Wummer, whose art gives the series a consistent and friendly visual identity. The stories are short and self-contained, which makes them easy to pick up in any order, though reading from the beginning gives readers a better sense of the recurring cast and their relationships.
The series works because Jones and Dadey understand how children relate to animal characters as proxies for their own social world. The school setting gives every book a built-in structure, and the dog-centered twist keeps the premise fresh across a long run of titles.