Interview with Lori Lobenstine, Author of The Barking Puppy
Welcome to Smack Dab, Lori! Please tell us a bit about The Barking Puppy.
When eleven-year-old Sophie and her two Jack Russell terriers move to Boston, the first neighbors they meet are a quirky teenager named Juno and her breathing-challenged pug, Bonney. They quickly bond over their love for dogs, but making friends at school isn’t so easy. Sophie is excited to not be the only brown kid, but her classmates make fun of her Vermont overalls and don’t appreciate the humor of the “by-dogs-for-dogs” newspaper that she and Juno are dreaming up. But then Bonney needs surgery, Sophie’s dogs chase a mean neighbor’s hairless cat, and it looks like the Barking Puppy newspaper might never go to print. Can Sophie's goal to “think like a dog” help her rescue Bonney, keep her family out of trouble with the landlady, make friends at school, and even challenge the Boston Globe?
I’ve had pets my entire life. The relationship between Sophie and her dogs, Eleanor Rigby and Ollie Baba, is so heartwarming. What inspired you to write about this special bond between a young girl and her pets?
I feel like our pets do so much for us in terms of showing us other ways to be in the world. Even before my goddaughter Sophie and her mom got the Jack Russells, Sophie was a dog person. She could always think like a dog! One time when she was about four years old, I joked that my dog Herschel never wanted to read his birthday cards, because he was so eager for his yummy presents. Without missing a beat, Sophie wedged a dog-biscuit in her card to him so he would open it! Brilliant. Our relationship has always centered our pets, and our shared humor has always been dog-centric, so The Barking Puppy is really an extension of that.
Sophie has a wonderful way of "thinking like a dog" throughout the book. How do you think children can benefit from trying to see the world from an animal's perspective?
Well, as I said, Sophie has really always had that gift, although I didn’t quite have that language for it. I’ll tell you how the idea came to me, though. In chapter one, Sophie and her mom (and their dogs, of course!) are moving to Boston. I was writing a list of things that Sophie wanted to do in Boston, because Sophie loves lists. When I got to number 10, I wrote something dumb like “Be brave.” My twin sister is an elementary school librarian, and her eyes almost rolled out of her head. “Every middle grade book with a female protagonist has that theme,” she complained. Which really gave me pause. What was I trying to say? How was my protagonist really going to navigate moving to a new city? So then it occurred to me how central this could be to her success. Thinking like a dog could be Sophie’s way of becoming brave—whether it was meeting other kids or challenging her godmother at the Boston Globe.
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| Sophie and Lori |
The Barking Puppy newspaper is such a creative concept! What gave you the idea for a "by-dogs-for-dogs" newspaper?
The Barking Puppy is based on a real “by-dogs-for-dogs” newspaper that I started with my goddaughter, Sophie, when she was ten! We had a week together during a school break, and we banged it out. Her dog-insights kept me laughing, and I quickly realized how well we collaborated. We shared a love for our dogs and a sense of humor, and a real willingness to “yes-and” all kinds of crazy ideas. Article about pug losing her off-leash owner? Check! Dog classifieds? Oh yea! Interviewing dogs on the street? For sure. And ten years later, we’re still like this! We’ve produced six other editions, a handmade Barking Puppy game, mini-documentaries, and now this book series, our video trailer, the audiobook, the book tour…the list goes on. It’s so fun! (You can see the PDFs of the original Barking Puppy newspapers at our website: http://thebarkingpuppy.com)
The story presents Sophie's experiences as a biracial child with sensitivity and authenticity. How did you approach writing these moments of identity and self-discovery? Why was creating a diverse neighborhood community important for Sophie's story?
When my goddaughter Sophie was eight years old, she and her mom moved from Harlem, NY to Vermont. For a long time, she didn’t have a lot of language around race or the massive change that she had experienced in terms of community. As I was writing the book, she was really coming into that language as a high schooler there. She shared a video she made of herself talking about her experiences, and it was one of the very first times that we talked about race and what it was like being brown in Vermont. She ended up experiencing a whole range of racism there, and she used her amazing sense of humor to call it out. I was actively working on writing The Barking Puppy at that time, and so it was important to me to weave in some of the diverse members of my own community in Boston—adults, kids, and dogs. And it was important to think about what it had been like for me coming of age as a white girl realizing she was gay. What could we learn from each other, and why hadn’t we talked more about these things? That is something that Sophie and her godmother start to explore in the book.
Bonney's health crisis drives much of the plot. What made you choose to incorporate this more serious element into an otherwise lighthearted story?
As a lifelong youthworker, I’ve seen so many examples of young people solving problems together. I’m also grateful for the countless ways that books help our young people think about and address challenging issues. As I wrote The Barking Puppy, I wanted to choose a topic that would be important to Sophie, the character, and also something that she and her teenage collaborator, Juno, could really take on. I really wanted that to be an element of the book: two girls summoning their creativity, humor and chutzpah to try to raise $3,000 for a pug’s surgery!
There's a lovely message about embracing one's unique qualities in the book. How do you hope this resonates with young readers?
I’m glad you saw that! I have such a passion for people who are so fully themselves, who don’t shy away from their oddness, or better yet, who see it as their super power. At first Sophie’s classmates don’t understand her—from her dog humor, to her old school taste in music, to her “Vermont overalls”. But Juno, the teenager next door, not only embraces her own uniqueness, but fully sees Sophie’s too. And across her diverse community, Sophie has a lot of role models for this, from her godmother Lori’s odd obsessions, to Rudey telling her not to let anyone “yuk her yum.” I hope readers really take this in—both in terms of embracing their own idiosyncrasies and those of others. And I hope they notice how Sophie’s new classmates start to value her and appreciate the Barking Puppy newspaper.
What was your favorite scene to write in "The Barking Puppy"?
Gosh, there were a lot of fun scenes. I’d say I might be able to narrow it down to the bake sale scene at the vet (having to drag poor Summitt across the main lobby is based on a true story!) and the final scene at the Boston Globe. Once I realized Bonney the Pug’s key role there, it was on!
What do you hope most that readers will take away from your story?
I hope readers will laugh out loud, read the books to their dogs, and get inspired to take on issues that matter to them. Maybe they literally start their own hand-drawn newspaper, or maybe they stand up for their neighbors and classmates in new ways, or even help their dogs make a case for a bottomless treat drawer!
What’s next?
There’s so much going on right now! Our publisher, Levine Querido, asked the real Sophie to narrate The Barking Puppy audiobook, so I’ve had the pleasure of sitting in on her amazing recording sessions. Which is so much fun! We are also actively planning our local (and regional) book tour, as well as trying to learn the best ways to get The Barking Puppy in as many hands (and paws) as we can. I’m also working on Book 3!
Where can we find you?
Our website, http://thebarkingpuppy.com, has a book trailer, activities for readers, photos of the real dogs and humans that the book is based on, as well as the actual Barking Puppy newspapers. (Plus updates on Sophie and Lori’s book tour, class visits, and more.) We’re also on YouTube and IG at: @TheBarkingPuppyBook
Great interview, thanks for sharing.
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