Dear Teachers, Librarians, and Media-Specialists,
All the Best Dogs is about being a nerdy kid with just one real friend. And then losing that friend. It’s about being a popular girl who’s misunderstood by many of the people around her. It’s about being a kid with a struggling parent and starting to heal as that parent gets help. And it’s about being a kid who has done something he’s really ashamed of.
It’s also about how four very different kids with very different problems find their ways forward… with the help of dogs. The human-dog connection makes days brighter, makes people braver. Loving a dog can empower a person to show their true selves, their best selves, to other people.
I used to be an educator, both for elementary students and college students. When I write, I love to imagine things teachers and kids might do with my texts. Maybe you’ll look at the conflict between Kaleb and May-Alice and have students role-play, each defending their position. You could do that with the conflict between Kaleb and Ezra, too.
Maybe you’ll study the different communities represented in the Brooklyn of the book — helping kids explore the intersection of bodegas, pizza places, bagel stores, chocolate shops and bubble tea stores in one neighborhood, and what that says about who lives there.
Maybe you’ll talk about the economic and family structure differences between the kids in the book — Ezra with a married mom and dad, dad out of work. Kaleb and his sister living with a single mom, Kaleb in a makeshift bedroom, Dad living nearby. Jilly living with her single aunt while her mom is in recovery, no father in the picture. And May-Alice, with two fairly affluent parents living together.
Or maybe you’ll just talk about dogs! Who has a dog at home. Who would like to have a dog at home. Perhaps you’ll all imagine your “best dog” and draw it. Maybe you’ll brainstorm the silliest dog names you can think of as a creative writing exercise, and then have kids write a story about an imaginary best dog with the name they think is funniest. In the story, the dog will be trying to convince a human to give it a snack when it isn’t doggie snack time. A persuasive essay in the voice of a dog.
I think that would be a good day in an elementary school classroom. At least, it’s a day that the ten-year-old writer I used to be would have loved.
Thank you for thinking of sharing All the Best Dogs with your kids. And thank you for bringing literature and all its joys to your students in this difficult time.
Yours,
Emily Jenkins
