Love Is My Favorite Thing by Emma Chichester Clark

Pick up a copy of Love Is My Favorite Thing. Read it in your most adorable dog voice. Take the book home. Read it to your dog. Then let your dog read it to you. This Valentine’s Day, let Plummie do the talking. Plum (Emma Chichester Clark’s dog) is a “whoosell” or a whippet, poodle, and Jack Russell cross. And Plummie just LOVES love! In fact, she is the one telling the story in this book. She especially loves it when Emma and Rupert, her family, tell her “You are a very good girl, Plummie.” But will Plummie always be loved, even when she chases other dogs, jumps in water, and grabbing toddlers’ melting ice creams in the park?  This is a story of one slightly naughty dog who is loved unconditionally. A perfect read for your children to laugh and giggle as Plum REALLY tries to be a good dog, and inevitably, creates a lot of mayhem (and love) along the way. 

Check out Emma Chichester's Plumdog Blog to see more adventures with Plummie!

Plum wonders "Will they still love me?"  in Love Is My Favorite Thing.

Kindness

Dav Pilkey with his Hallo-Wiener
Photo credit: Karyn Carpenter

Oscar, the Dachshund hero of The Hallo-Wiener by Dav Pilkey, is a mascot for kindness, and how it reaps its own rewards.

The other dogs are not very kind to Oscar (calling him "Wiener Dog" and laughing at him), but that does not keep him from wearing the bun costume that his mother gives him for Halloween (even though that only ramps up the name-calling and laughter). Oscar wears the costume to be kind; he doesn't want to hurt his mother's feelings.

And despite how the other dogs treat Oscar, he comes to their rescue when they're in trouble. At this age, when toddlers and preschoolers are just beginning to leave the unconditional love and protection of their parents and caregivers to enter daycare and preschool, Oscar sends a strong example of being kind no matter what.

Although the other dogs are rude to Oscar, he does not have to return their rudeness. He chooses to be kind, and to come to their aid when a scary "monster" (two cats in disguise) chases them. His act of kindness opens the other dogs' eyes to look beyond Oscar's appearance and recognize an act of true friendship. For toddlers, pair this with Baby Be Kind.

Pieces of a Puzzle

Meg Rosoff

Picture Me Gone came to Meg Rosoff in small pieces, the way the clues to the mystery at the heart of the novel came to her 12-year-old narrator. 

First, the author found the name Mila (pronounced MEE-lah). Then, she met a lone dog in the park with a nametag that said Mila. "I don’t believe in extraterrestrial communication," Rosoff told me in an interview, "but I had a little bit of a feeling that someone was telling me to go to work." That dog also gave the author her opening line ("The first Mila was a dog"), and after that, the book was all in her head: "It was a moment of magic that happens sometimes with writing," she said.

Rosoff knew that Mila and her father, Gil, would be trying to find someone--Matthew, Gil's oldest friend--but she wasn't sure why Matthew left. One of the key early clues for Mila is that Susannah, Matthew's wife, seems to be angry with the family dog--Susannah completely ignores Honey. Mila realizes Honey must be Matthew's dog, and what kind of person leaves his dog behind? Rosoff wasn't sure when she began why Susannah would hate Honey, but over time, as she rewrote and rewrote, it became clear to her. "It was like applying thin layers of paint, draft after draft," she said. "Each draft got a little more complex."

The parallel between Mila and Rosoff herself, this process of discovery in solving a mystery and writing a novel, seems too strong to ignore. The creative process is a mystery. In the composition of a novel or a painting or a piece of music, the creator may have an idea of where he or she is going, but the way to get there is often elusive. And on the journey, like Mila, the artist often discovers something about herself in putting together the puzzle.   

Staying True to Yourself

When I first started teaching (and that was 20 years ago now), Halloween was all about the costumes and the candy and who could get the most. It’s still all about the costumes and the candy and who can get the most.

What I love about Dav Pilkey’s The Hallo-Wiener (aside from the fact that it stars a Dachshund, a breed to which I’m partial), is that he exploits these two facts to their fullest comic potential. And because he is so funny, Pilkey is able to subtly touch on two themes here that often plague childhood: acceptance for being exactly who you are, and bullying—which are often related.

The other dogs make fun of Oscar because of who he is (“Wiener Dog! Wiener Dog!”). He looks different from the other pups pictured. He’s long and low to the ground. He looks forward to Halloween because he can escape into another identity with his disguise. But his mother, who loves him for who he is, buys him a costume that accentuates the very trait for which he is ostracized (a hot dog bun with mustard). Not only that, but the costume’s unwieldiness slows his pace, and the candy’s all gone by the time he arrives at the front door of each house on his route.

When I hit my teens, my peers began teasing me about my red hair and freckles. I’ll never forget in 8th grade science class, the most popular jock telling me I had “puke-red hair.” And even worse, I remember my mother’s hairdresser, while giving me a haircut, told me, “Don’t worry, you’ll be beautiful when you’re 30.” There I was with my puke-red hair, freckles and braces, and I was miserable! Like Oscar, I wanted to escape into other disguises. So I acted in plays and literally became other characters. Later, I was glad to have had all of my theatre experiences, which I likely would not have pursued if I’d been welcomed into the popular crowd. Today I even enjoy being a redhead. But try telling that to any child or teenager. They still have to live through all of this awkwardness and discomfort.

In this humorous but gently wise tale, the very characteristic that make Oscar the butt of his peers’ jokes—his low point of gravity—gives him the perspective and the strength needed to spot the true identity of the monster and also to unveil the monster for what it is. The other pups are grateful that Oscar saved them, and appreciate his resourcefulness.

Yes, the book is most of all a sweet and satisfying humorous tale in which the underdog winds up on top. But it also has some strong points to make that, after many rereadings, your youngsters will begin to internalize, whether you ever discuss its subtle lessons or not.

So even though much of the fun of Halloween is dressing up and stepping into another identity (and eating bagfuls of chocolate), Dav Pilkey’s clever comedy tells us that, ultimately, we need to be comfortable with who we are all year long.