Some things in our world are quite mysterious to dogs…
Some things in our world are quite mysterious to dogs…such as toilets. Shep called a toilet the “white bowl”. What do you think this Yorkie calls the toilet?
Dayna
A Quote from Alexandra Horowitz’s Inside of a Dog
Things directly in front of a dog’s face are visible to him, but they are not quite as sharply in focus as they would be for us… . In fact, dogs might overlook small things right in front of their nose [because of the way their eyes are structured]. Inside of a Dog (Scribner, 2009; page…
This is my dog, Kerry.
This is my dog, Kerry. The character of Callie is a thinly disguised version of this little girl. She’s a pug mix—we think pug mixed with jack russell terrier. What do you think?
A Quote from The Storm
This is what a dog’s life should be, Shep thought as he raced after the Ball for a fifth time. Nothing but sky above and the wind in your fur and grass under your paws and a boy to play with.
A Quote from Alexandra Horowitz’s Inside of a Dog
One could say that dogs see the world faster than we do, but what they really do is see just a bit more world in every second. We marvel at dogs’ seemingly magical skill at catching a Frisbee on the fly, or following a rapidly bouncing ball… . [They can do this because] dogs actually…
Anatomy of a Character: Shep
Fun fact: The character of Shep was not always going to be a German shepherd. In my earliest notes, I thought my main character would be a pitt bull/boxer mix, or some other kind of young mutt. But as I thought more about my character, I knew he was a German shepherd. There’s something noble…
A Quote from Alexandra Horowitz’s Inside of a Dog
Dogs are not color-blind, as is popularly believed. But color plays a much less important role for them than it does for humans…. Inside of a Dog (Scribner 2009; page 128)
A Quote from The Storm
Below, the dogs marveled at how the Great Wolf sparkled throughout the night.
Exegesis of my Childhood Canon: All Dogs Go to Heaven
If there was ever a banner day in the history of children’s film (at least for my generation), it was November 17, 1989: The day on which both All Dogs Go to Heaven and The Little Mermaid opened on the big screen. It might tell you something that though I saw The Little Mermaid TEN TIMES in the theater, I don’t…
Not Your Parents’ Novel: Monster and the New Narrative
This month I’m blogging about what I’ve called “textual anomalies,” by which I mean the crazy stuff that writers are allowed to do in middle grade and young adult novels and pretty much nowhere else. Things like changing fonts to indicate a character’sdifferent states of mind or sticking a character’s artwork into the text or simply allowing a…
Dayna Lorentz is the author of the DOGS OF THE DROWNED CITY series (Scholastic) and NO SAFETY IN NUMBERS (Dial).
I write because I have to; I write because I love to; I eat cupcakes because they’re there.