Dogpile, a guest post by Pete Hautman

When I was nine years old I discovered Reading. Of course, I already knew how to read, and I’d read plenty of assigned books for school, but reading was not something I did by choice. I was more captivated by sports, games, and outdoor activities—it had never occurred to me to sit down with a book and read it for fun. Then, one day, on the bus home from school I noticed my best friend Ricky carrying a book with a beautiful Irish Setter on the cover.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Big Red,” he said.

“You have to read it?”

“I don’t have to,” he said. “It’s just really good! You can borrow it when I’m done.”

I was doubtful, but Ricky was my best friend, so the next week I read Big Red. Ricky was right. It was good. So good I went on to read every other Jim Kjelgaard book in our school library. Then every other book I could find with an animal on the cover, and then…I had become a Reader.

A few years ago an editor from Holiday House announced that they were planning a 75^th anniversary edition of Big Red. I mentioned that I’d been a big Kjellgaard fan when I was a kid, and she invited me to write a foreword for the new edition.

Yes, I would love to! I dove back into a reread of Big Red and several other Kjelgaard titles, and was delighted to find that they held up remarkably well. I remembered vividly being transported by those books as a fourth grader, and I wondered why, after writing twenty-five books for young readers, I had never addressed the bond between a child and an animal. When I looked over the books I had written, the shortage of beasts was evident.

Maybe I hadn’t tackled the theme because hundreds (maybe thousands) of other authors have done it so well, from White Fang to Old Yeller, from Philip Pullman’s “Dark Materials” trilogy to Kate Dicamillo’s Because of Winn Dixie. So many books! Why add another title to the dogpile?

Because once the seed was planted I couldn’t stop thinking about dogs, and I began to write about a dog. A runaway border collie. A white border collie. One black ear. Two different colored eyes. I didn’t know the dog’s name at first, but the more I wrote, the more I learned. I followed the dog through the woods, across creeks and fields, and down country roads. I tried to imagine and write a world as a dog would experience it—a world of smells and sounds, textures and tastes, rabbits and deer and foxes and fences and incomprehensible machines and untrustworthy humans.

And since every dog needs a friend, I introduced the dog to a boy in need of a friend of his own, and Answers to Dog was born.

The dogpile is getting higher.

Meet the author

Pete Hautman is the author of more than thirty novels for adult, teen, and middle-grade readers, including the 2004 National Book Award winner Godless, 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner The Big Crunch, and 2019 Edgar Allan Poe Award winner Otherwood. He has written three New York Times Notable Books and won four Minnesota Book Awards. 

His novels genre-hop from science fiction (The Obsidian Blade) to mystery (Blank Confession) to contemporary drama (Godless) to romantic comedy (What Boys Really Want). Recent books include the middle-grade novels Slider, The Rat Queen, and Answers to Dog.

With novelist and poet Mary Logue, Pete divides his time between Golden Valley, Minnesota, and Stockholm, Wisconsin.

Learn more about Pete Hautman on his website: www.petehautman.com , his blog http://petehautman.blogspot.com  Follow him on https://twitter.com/petehautman and https://www.facebook.com/Pete-Hautman-187947704574606

About Answers to Dog

National Book Award winner Pete Hautman explores a friendship like no other—and the universal truth that dogs make life better, especially for underdogs.

Evan doesn’t seem to fit in at school or at home. He goes out of his way to avoid attention. He sits at the back of the bus, keeps his head down in class, and keeps to himself. But when a burr-covered border collie—a survivor with a gut instinct about the Boy—starts following him around and joining him on his runs, Evan’s simple duck-and-dodge existence becomes a lot more complicated . . . a lot more like life. Evolving from wary companions to steadfast friends, Evan and the dog run fast and far together, thwart an abusive dog breeder and the school bully, and find the courage to stand up for themselves and to open up to those who matter most. Narrated in alternating viewpoints, this relatable contemporary novel with classic coming-of-age themes has all the hope, pathos, and emotional complexity that mark Pete Hautman’s books for middle-grade readers—and is a deeply satisfying read for animal lovers.

ISBN-13: 9781536234886
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Publication date: 10/01/2024
Age Range: 9 – 12 Years

Filed under: Guest Post