Welcome!

I’m sitting here at my desk wearing shorts and a T-shirt, with the window open to birdsong and a ceiling fan on. Hooray for Springtime!

 For me, the spring of 2009 already has been incredible.  First, there was the release of a movie based on my novel, HOTEL FOR DOGS.  I wrote that book thirty years ago, and it had been out of print for ages, but one of the producers at Dreamworks remembered it as his favorite book when he was a little boy and convinced the other producers that it would make a great movie. 

As always happens, the film script isn’t quite like the book.  In my book, Andi, 10, and Bruce, 12, turn a vacant house into a haven for unwanted dogs.  In the movie, Andi is 16, (that change in age was so Emma Roberts could star), and the kids are orphans, (that change was so Lisa Kudrow could be their foster mother and Don Cheadle could adopt them.)  The vacant house is now a deserted luxury hotel.  And, instead of the twelve dogs in my original story, there are eight “star dogs,” all of whom have understudies who look just like them, plus fifty extras for the crowd scenes.  Each dog had its personal trainer to direct it on the set.  My husband and I got to go to the Hollywood premiere, and I “walked the red carpet” behind the dogs, except that the carpet was green, because dogs prefer to walk on turf.  

Scholastic republished HOTEL FOR DOGS in January.  They have also just published NEWS FOR DOGS, the first of two sequels that take Andi and Bruce and their  menagerie through new adventures. The third book, MOVIE FOR DOGS, will be published next spring.

And other exciting things have happened.  In April, the Catholic Library Association honored me with the Katharine Drexel Award "to recognize an outstanding contribution by an individual to the growth of high school and young adult librarianship and literature.” 

 And there’s even more!!!  STRANGER WITH MY FACE has been filmed as a made-for-TV movie for the Lifetime Channel.  This is one of my personal favorites of my young adult suspense novels, and I hope the film will be one I can be proud of.  Once an author gives up his/her rights to Hollywood, that author has no control over what is done with the story.  Please read the book before you watch the movie, which will probably air in October.  I love that story so much that I want you to be introduced to it as I wrote it before you might see it changed into something different.

 Keep reading.  Not just my books, but those by other authors as well.  There are so many wonderful books out there that you’ll miss a lot if you don’t keep looking for new “favorite authors.” 

 Happy Springtime!

Lois Duncan 

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