Today I welcome Alan Cumyn to Best Dog Books, a blog that features interviews with authors who’ve written a dog story for kids or young adults. Alan is here to talk about North to Benjamin which is a middle grade novel published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers for kids aged 10-14.
Best Dog Books: Who is your key dog character(s) and what kind of dog is he/she?
Benjamin is an elderly Newfoundland dog who lives in Dawson City, Yukon. He drools, he farts, he likes to be warm and comfortable, and he has a dry sense of humor about being dragged out in the cold for walks and such. He sees humans pretty much as they are, and that’s why he likes the new kid in town, Edgar, so much. For all his hiding, Edgar is a good soul, and he and Benjamin bond quickly.
Best Dog Books: Tell us about your story.
Young Edgar is dragged north by his unhappy mother, who is fleeing the big city after troubles with her latest man. Edgar is like a house cat who knows humans all too well. For sure, knowing his mother, going so far away to a place like Dawson City will probably will end in disaster. But Edgar will get to look after Benjamin, the dog who comes with the house he and his mother will be living in for a couple of months. Edgar would like nothing better than to spend time with the lovable giant Benjamin, and a new friend, Caroline. But trouble follows Edgar’s mother wherever she goes. Why in the world would she be attracted to Caroline’s father, who already has a perfectly fine girlfriend? Knowing that trouble is coming, Edgar becomes so anxious he stops being able to speak… except with Benjamin, who is in some ways no help at all, and in other ways, all the help Edgar needs.
Best Dog Books: What inspired you to write this story?
In the spring of 2014 I got the chance of a lifetime to spend three months in Dawson City, in Canada’s far north. I had read about Dawson ever since I was a child, especially in the books of Jack London and the poems of Robert W. Service. Dawson was home to a gold rush in 1898 that, for a few years, made it a thriving city in the middle of wilderness. Dawson is still a home to gold miners, artists, adventurers, and a strong First Nations community. Two rivers meet there, the Klondike and the Yukon, and the surrounding hills are breathtaking. Of course I started to think about setting a story there. I had a perfect place. But who was the story about?
When I got back home to Ottawa, Edgar spoke up, at least in my imagination. And I knew that he needed a friend who wasn’t human. Dawson is full of dogs, some of the most beautiful and best behaved I’ve ever seen. But it was on an earlier trip, to Anchorage, Alaska, when I met the model for Benjamin, a Great Pyrenees named Baird, whose owner is a dear friend. Sometimes threads of a story can be in the back of a writer’s mind for a long time before suddenly they all come together.
Best Dog Books: What was the biggest challenge in writing the book?
When Edgar loses his voice and finds the only thing he can do is bark, I wanted him to become as much like a dog, from the inside, as possible (while still remaining a boy.) Dogs have a terrific sense of smell compared to humans, and I had to work hard to imagine what it would be like to sense the world primarily through your nose. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that sniffing a familiar marking post would be like reading a social media feed for a dog: who had been there, how long ago, what did they have for dinner, who have they been running around with? I think dogs have a fascinating life, and it was a pleasure to try to think like one while writing the story.
Best Dog Books: What kind of story can we expect next from you? Is it about a dog? If so, what can you tell us about it?
I have a new manuscript with plenty of animals but, strangely, no dogs (!) I do like animals as characters. It seems to me we humans have to do a better job of making sure there is room and safety for all of us on this fragile planet.
I do have an earlier book that features a rambunctious black dog, Sylvester. It’s called After Sylvia and it’s the second in my Owen Skye middle grade series, which also includes The Secret Life of Owen Skye and Dear Sylvia.
Best Dog Books: What else would you like us to know about you or your story?
I grew up with dogs, and the very first story I wrote, which won a prize, was about our beautiful collie, Lady, who was very sick with cancer near the end of her life. The prize was from the Humane Society of Ottawa, and our school principal gathered the entire student body so that he could hand out a trophy that felt bigger than me, and that had all the names of previous winners going back many years. I was so nervous I thought my knees would give out. It took me a long time after that to write another story – why bother, unless someone was going to give me a big trophy? The story about Lady had come out of my concern for her suffering, and later stories came out of other feelings I wanted to express, other things I needed to say. After a while I got over the disappointment of not getting a big trophy every time I wrote something down. But that certainly was an exciting start!
Best Dog Books: Can you remember the first book that made an impact on you? Why?
There is a special place in my heart for The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. I was not a boy genius reader when I was young. I remember struggling with words and having a hard time working my way through early books. And, the opening of The Wind in the Willows seemed even more difficult than most. But once Rat and Mole and Badger meet up with the amazing Mr. Toad, who loves motor cars in a bizarre and crazy way, then the story became a movie in my head. I could see everyone, I laughed out loud at Toad’s ridiculous adventures. Reading stopped being work and somehow became exciting instead!
Best Dog Books: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Write for yourself first. Write the poem or the story or the book you desperately want and need to read right now. Enjoy every moment. Writing, like any kind of creation, is its own best reward.
If you’d like to learn more about Alan Cumyn you can check out the author’s website. You can also find book reviews from Kirkus Book Reviews, and Quill & Quire.
See also: Alan Cumyn on the writing of North to Benjamin.
And: Alan Cumyn reading from North to Benjamin.
Thank you Alan for joining us at Best Dog Books for kids. We loved NORTH TO BENJAMIN!
For other great books about dogs, check out 101 Best Dog Books for Kids.
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