Best Dog Books for Kids welcomes Sheri Wall to our blog that features interviews with authors who’ve written a canine story for kids or young adults. Sheri is here to talk about The Silly Milly the Dane Collection, which is a picture book collection published by A Matter of Rhyme for kids aged 3 to 8.

About your Best Dog Book

Who is your key dog character(s) and what kind of dog is he/she?

Milly is a Great Dane, and she is my niece’s beloved pet.

What is your dog book about?

The Silly Milly Collection consists of three books (with another on the way).

Silly Milly the Dane is about her all-around big dog shenanigans.

A Silly Milly Fall combines Milly’s Halloween and Thanksgiving “petitude.”

A Silly Milly Christmas chronicles a family Christmas Eve where Milly was our entertainment.

What inspired you to write this dog book?

My niece, Erin, asked me to write a book about Milly. I had just started writing books as an empty-nester creative outlet, and Erin thought Milly would make a great main character. I definitely agreed!

What else would you like readers to know about your dog book?

Milly’s books are written in limericks with varying degrees of repetition to keep all readers interested and entertained. Just about everything in Milly’s books has actually happened. I’ve taken a few creative liberties, though. My niece, Erin, is a graphic designer and she personally completes the layout process for each of her Milly’s books.

About the Writing Process

What was the biggest challenge you had writing your dog book? How did you overcome it?

Writing limericks while varying the repetition was my biggest challenge. I also needed to keep the same feel throughout. There are only so many words that rhyme with Milly. I also wanted to introduce young readers to new words, alliteration, and synonym usage. I just kept editing and trying different combinations, and it all seems to work!

What kind of story can readers expect next from you? Is it about a dog? If so, what can you tell us about it?

While I have other rhyming children’s books, Milly’s books are the most popular. Her next book will feature a very special day that is shared by everyone everywhere! I hope to release it this spring. There are limericks galore and some special guests in the book.

Can you remember the first book that made an impact on you? Why?

From my childhood, I remember The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. I just loved the goofy playfulness and the bright pictures.

While reading to my young sons, I loved the classic The Red Carpet by Rex Parkin. It was so flowy and fun.

What is your favorite dog book? Why?

That’s a tough question. I’m going to say No Roses for Harry by Gene Zion because I read it to my niece and my sons, and we all identified with Harry not liking a clothing gift he had received. We weren’t fortunate enough to have the same resolution Harry did though.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

A writer’s job is to write. Keep writing, whether it is just a list of ideas, little poems, or funny lines that pop into your head. Eventually, you will write your first book. There is so much information available online to help you on your journey, and there is always more to learn.

About the Author

If you’d like to learn more about Sheri Wall, you can check out the author’s website  or follow the author on Facebook or Instagram, and follow Milly on Instagram. You can also find book reviews from Amazon.

Thank you Sheri, for joining us at Best Dog Books. We look forward to reading your dog book!

Dog Book Resources

For other great books about dogs, check out 101 Best Dog Books for Kids.

For published authors, check out our Best Dog Book Medal.

The winner of the 2020 Best Dog Book Medal is Blue Daisy (Margaret Ferguson Books) written by Helen Frost and illustrated by Rob Shepperson. Congratulations, Helen, Margaret and Rob! Read Helen’s Blue Daisy  interview with Best Dog Books For Kids here.

Honor Best Dog Books include: A Wolf For A Spell by Sarah Sutton, Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, American Dog: Brave by Jennifer Li Shotz and American Dog: Poppy by Jennifer Li Shotz.

Marc Olivier Le Blanc photography

Thank you, Ann Jacobus for being our first Best Dog Book Medal judge.

Ann Jacobus earned an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of YA novel Romancing the Dark in the City of Light as well as The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent, forthcoming in 2023. She teaches writers of all ages, scouts English-language children’s fiction for La Martiniere Groupe in France, and is the proud parent of Miniature Schnauzer Louie II.

Dog Book Resources

For other great books about dogs, check out 101 Best Dog Books for Kids.

To learn more about the Best Dog Book Medal.  

Thank you for the lovely illustration, Rob Shepperson!

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

National Book Award Longlist

New York Times best seller

An Amazon Best Book of the Year

From best-selling and award-winning author Sara Pennypacker comes a beautifully wrought, utterly compelling novel about the powerful relationship between a boy and his fox. Pax is destined to become a classic, beloved for generations to come.

Pax and Peter have been inseparable ever since Peter rescued him as a kit. But one day, the unimaginable happens: Peter’s dad enlists in the military and makes him return the fox to the wild.

At his grandfather’s house, 300 miles away from home, Peter knows he isn’t where he should be – with Pax. He strikes out on his own despite the encroaching war, spurred by love, loyalty, and grief, to be reunited with his fox.

Meanwhile Pax, steadfastly waiting for his boy, embarks on adventures and discoveries of his own….

Listen to the interview with Sara about PAX on National Public Radio.

Here are some starred reviews:

Kirkus Reviews: “Moving and poetic.”

Booklist: “Pennypacker’s expert, evenhanded storytelling reveals stunning depth in a relatively small package.”

To learn more about Sara Pennypacker, check out her website.

Dog Book Resources

For other great books about dogs, check out 101 Best Dog Books for Kids.

For published authors, check out our Best Dog Book Medal.

Best Dog Books for Kids welcomes Karah Sutton to our blog that features interviews with authors who’ve written a canine story for kids or young adults. Karah Sutton is here to talk about A Wolf for a Spell which is a middle grade fantasy published by Knopf Books for Young Readers for kids aged 8-12.

About your Best Dog Book

Who is your key dog character(s) and what kind of dog is he/she?

Zima is a wolf in a Russian fairytale-inspired forest, living with her brothers Grom, Leto, and Potok. She is also friendly with a lone wolf named Veter.

What is your dog book about?

A Wolf for a Spell follows three main characters: Zima the wolf, a village girl named Nadya, and the notorious witch of Slavic folklore Baba Yaga. When Zima goes to the witch for help in saving her brother from a hunter, the witch casts a spell that causes her and Zima to trade places. Suddenly Zima finds herself in the middle of a plot that could save or destroy her beloved forest home

What inspired you to write this dog book?

Wolves are almost always the enemy in fairytales, so I wanted to write a story about a wolf who gets to be the hero. It wasn’t until I’d worked on the story for a few months that I had the idea to base it on Russian fairytales, specifically the story of ‘Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf’. That was when the story really started to take on a life of its own.

What else would you like readers to know about your dog book?

While not precisely a dog book, I think readers who love dogs will enjoy seeing wolves as the heroes of this adventure!

About the Writing Process

What was the biggest challenge you had writing your dog book? How did you overcome it?

The story has a rather intricate plot, with different characters all undertaking their own plans, crossing paths, twisting and turning. Keeping all of that straight and having it all make sense was definitely a challenge. It felt a bit like trying to solve a puzzle when I could only see some of the pieces.

What kind of story can readers expect next from you? Is it about a dog? If so, what can you tell us about it?

I think my stories will always feature animals in some way, though not necessarily dogs/wolves. My next book focuses more on birds, specifically swans.

Can you remember the first book that made an impact on you? Why?

This is such an interesting question, because I feel like most books have had an impact on me, so this is almost like trying to remember the very first book I ever read, which I’m not sure I do! The earliest book I can remember rereading and which has affected me even into adulthood is The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. I think my stories tend to be about forests because that book made me want to live there.

What is your favorite dog book? Why?

A book I love that heavily influenced A Wolf for a Spell is The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell. It asks very intriguing questions about what happens when people wild animals such as wolves as pets, but it’s also a thrilling adventure in a frozen Russian landscape.

Photo credit: Tabitha Arthur

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

So much of writing and publishing is about not giving up. Keep writing that next page, next chapter, next story. The more you write the more you learn, and you never know which story will capture someone’s interest and heart.

About the Author

If you’d like to learn more about Karah Sutton, you can check out the author’s website  or follow the author on twitter  or instagram . You can also find book reviews from here.

Thank you Karah Sutton for joining us at Best Dog Books. We look forward to reading your dog book!

Dog Book Resources

For other great books about dogs, check out 101 Best Dog Books for Kids.

For published authors and unpublished authors, check out our writing contests.

Today I welcome Helen Frost to Best Dog Books, a blog that features interviews with authors who’ve written a canine story for kids or young adults. Helen will talk about Diamond Willow which is a middle grade novel published by Frances Foster Books, FSG for kids aged 8-12.

Best Dog Books: Who is your key dog character(s) and what kind of dog is he/she?

Roxy is a sled dog, the lead dog, in a dog team in rural Alaska.

Best Dog Books: Tell us about your story.

Willow, a 12-year-old girl, feels ordinary and unappreciated, especially at school. She’s more confident out on the trail with her family’s dog team, and thinks she should be trusted to mush the dogs out to her grandparents’ house, alone. When her parents finally trust her to do this, she and the dogs have an accident, and Roxy, the lead dog, is injured. In trying to make things right, Willow gets into serious trouble, taking Roxy and her best friend with her. With the help of the animals around her, and the affectionate concern of the ancestors those animals represent, Willow finds her way to safety, and saves herself and Roxy.

It’s an adventure story, a story of family secrets, and beneath it all, a story of a girl and a dog.

Best Dog Books: What inspired you to write this story?

Early in the story, Willow says, “I was named after a stick.” Something similar can be said about the story itself: it was inspired by a stick. I lived in a small community in Alaska for three years, and when I left, a friend gave me a Diamond Willow walking stick that he had found, peeled, sanded, and polished to a beautiful finish. The diamonds in diamond willow are formed when a tree is injured and a branch falls away, leaving a scar that is seen more clearly when the bark is peeled off. That is an extended metaphor throughout the story as Willow discovers something she has been missing all her life, and readers come to see how that is part of the beauty she has a hard time seeing in herself.

Best Dog Books: What was the biggest challenge you had writing your story? How did you overcome it?

I wrote the book in poems, following the form of diamond willow sticks: each poem is written in a diamond shape, with a smaller shape in bold print at the center. The poems are in first person, and as Willow tells her story, the bolded words say something she isn’t quite admitting to herself. That was a challenge I happily gave myself, and meeting it was a process of discovery as the language I needed rose to meet me.   

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 written a number of books since Diamond Willow, and there are dogs in several of them. In Hidden, the dog, Bilbo, is not heroic, though he does unintentionally help solve a mystery. In my recent (2020) book, Blue Daisy, the dog is very much a central character, as a catalyst for friendship between four children.

Best Dog Books: What else would you like us to know about you or your story?

As I mentioned above, for three years I lived in a small Alaskan community of 25 people, not accessible by road, but rather by air, boat, snowmobile or dog sled. The landscape and feeling of those years has been important to my “inner landscape” ever since.

Best Dog Books: Can you remember the first book that made an impact on you? Why?

My father was a wonderful story-teller, and I grew up in the middle of a large family (fifth of ten children), so perhaps more than a first book, I remember those cozy times of crowding around my father in his big green chair as he invented outlandish adventures and brought us all into them by giving the characters our names.

Best Dog Books: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Even if you are writing about something hard or sad, try to find a place of love at the center of your story, something strong in the telling of it. This may not be immediately apparent in the first draft, but it will come with patient attention.

If you’d like to learn more about Helen Frost, you can check out the author’s website or follow the author on facebook or instagram. You can find book reviews and awards for Helen’s books by following links on her website.

Thank you Helen for joining us at Best Dog Books. We look forward to reading your book!

Dog Book Resources

For other great books about dogs, check out 101 Best Dog Books for Kids.

For published authors and unpublished authors, check out our writing contests.