Kids always love a dog story

Barbara O’Connor has lived in Duxbury for the past 20 years, but all of her novels for children have been set in the South. The South Carolina native’s most popular book is “How to Steal a Dog,” which has received numerous recommendations and awards from organizations around the country. It’s about a girl who’s living in a car with her family and one day sees a sign offering a $500 reward for a missing dog. She decides to “borrow” a dog and claim the reward, setting off a chain of unexpected consequences.
O’Connor will sign copies the book at the grand opening of the Scituate Animal Shelter this Sunday. Here are excerpts from an interview with The Globe.

The book was a culmination of things. I saw a sign for a little lost dog and someone offering a reward. The dog had been missing for quite some time, and the dog’s name was Willie, which is the dog’s name in the book.

So I started thinking about the little dog and wondering what happened to him, and then I had the image of this little girl in her car. It sounds kind of cosmic, but all those ideas just came together. I began thinking of a child in a tough situation and making a choice that wasn’t the right choice, but thinking she was doing the right thing.

I never set out to write with a message or lesson in mind. I like to write, hopefully, a good story that’s entertaining. But [a message] usually comes through, because part of the process of writing a children’s book is creating a character who grows and changes along the way.

I think the book is popular because children are fascinated by a story about a child who does something wrong, who makes a mistake. All my characters and human beings, and human beings make mistakes. The first reaction to what this character does is shock, then they see how her conscience begins to evolve and how she wiggles her way out of the situation. And kids always love a good old dog story; there’s a dog on the cover and that hooks them from the get-go.

I draw so much on my own experience as a child and what it feels like to be a child, and that’s so centered around the South for me, because that’s where I grew up. It’s also what I’m most known for. When people are familiar with my work, they expect a Southern style. I doubt I’d ever write a novel that’s not about the South, but I never say never.

To read more about the shelter, click on http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/scituate/2009/06/we_finally_got_it_done.html