Today I welcome Graham Salisbury to Best Dog Books, a blog that features interviews with authors who’ve written a canine story for kids or young adults. Graham is here to talk about BANJO, a middle grade novel for kids aged 8-13. BANJO is published by Wendy Lamb Books, a division of Penguin Random House.
Best Dog Books: Who is your key dog character(s) and what kind of dog is he/she?
Banjo is mixed-breed, but mostly border collie. He was born to a feral mother and lived his first year in the wild. One day, his pack was crossing a road at night in a remote mountainous area. Banjo was last to cross and was clipped by a car whose driver failed to stop and aid the dog. He was found by a trucker the next morning, injured on the side of the road. The trucker later gave him to another trucker, father of Danny Mack, a thirteen-year-old ranch boy in central Oregon. Banjo and Danny hit if off from the get-go, as if they’d been friends from some lifetime time long past.
Best Dog Books: Tell us about your story.
BANJO is a story about a good, hard-working single father trying to mold his two boys into good men. It’s about honor, respect, self-esteem, difficult decisions and the exquisite relationship humans have with animals. It’s about love, courage and finding one’s integrity.
Best Dog Books: What inspired you to write this story?
Three things. One, an article I read in the paper about a dog that was sentenced to be put down for chasing a neighbor’s livestock (but was saved through legal intervention). Two, I wanted to write a book set in the west, a setting I love deeply. Finally, I wanted to spend time with characters who live by rock-solid values, who come to know who they are as people through the challenging situations in their lives. So … Banjo emerged.
Best Dog Books: What was the biggest challenge you had writing your story? How did you overcome it?
Rodeo details. I’ve watched many rodeos and cringed when the bull riders got tossed, stomped, crushed and beat to smithereens by some cranky thousand-pound beast. It amazes me that guys want to do this. But on some level I get it. Then there is the amazing grace of barrel racers and ropers, they way they ride, fluid and smooth, like water flowing over rocks. Just amazing to watch. Still, a spectator doesn’t know much about what goes on behind the scenes. I had to research all that. Fortunately, I found a husband and wife team who’d competed for years. They were very helpful in seeing that I got my details correct. And, of course, there were books and internet articles to pour over. Somehow it all came together in the end.
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?
The next story has yet to knock on my door. I am as curious as you are!
Best Dog Books: What else would you like us to know about you or your story?
I am very close to this story. I spent a lot of time on it. The values and character traits of my lead characters are those of my own. Yet we all make mistakes and often try to correct them in ways that make things worse. But we try, and that’s the important thing. Seven times down, eight times up, as the saying goes. Like Danny Mack in Banjo, I struggle with every book I write. It’s never easy, but every single one of them has been extremely rewarding. In the art of writing, just as in any art, it’s the process that thrills. The journey, the ride. The end result is just a marker that says, “Dang! I did it!”
Best Dog Books: Can you remember the first book that made an impact on you? Why?
Actually, the very first book that impacted me was Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burrows. Growing up in Hawaii, I immediately related to Tarzan’s jungle life, which was almost exactly like the jungle life of my own (much of which lived in my imagination). The book that turned me into a lifetime reader was Roots, by Alex Haley. That was the first book that gave me that wonderful vicarious experience of feeling as if I were the characters in the book. But the book that nailed it for me, the one that turned me into a writer, was Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins. Wow. After reading that book, I thought, THAT’S what I want to do. I want to be Scott O’Dell.
Best Dog Books: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Read. Then read some more. Keep a journal if you can. Then just start writing. It’s all about loving to imagine, to create, to feel alive! My personal motto is — and I made a sign out of this that I have on a wall in my studio: “You did not wake up today to be mediocre.” Find your own North Star quotation and make a sign to remind you that you are an amazing and miraculous creation and were born with powerful gifts you have yet to explore already within you. Open the door. Walk in. Stay a while. This is why you are here.
If you put your heart and soul into something you love, you will be astounded by what you can do.
If you’d like to learn more about Graham Salisbury, you can check out the author’s website.
Thank you Graham for joining us at Best Dog Books. We look forward to reading BANJO!
For other great books about dogs, check out 101 Best Dog Books for Kids.
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