This week brings the 10th anniversary of Ernie joining my family! He hopes to celebrate by getting up past his eyebrows in a container of yogurt, but I’ll settle for giving away copies of the picture book he has a big role in, How to Make a Book (About My Dog).

This book (illustrated by Sarah Horne and published in 2021 by Millbrook Press/Lerner Publishing) was inspired by two questions I would often hear at my school visits:

1) How do you make your books, and 2) are you ever going to write a book about Ernie?

So, this one isn’t so much about Ernie as it is about how the editor, art director, illustrator, and a whole team of us would go about creating a nonfiction book about him, all the way down to how I’d do the research — yes, even about my own dog!

Subscribers to my monthly Bartography Express newsletter (folks can sign up here) are eligible for one of four signed and personalized copies of How to Make a Book (About My Dog).

If you’re a Bartography Express subscriber with a U.S. mailing address and you’d like to be one of those winners (did I mention that the signatures include Ernie’s paw print?), by the end of August 2023 either say so in the comments below or email me directly, and you’ll officially be in the running.

Good luck, and may you enjoy Ernie’s next year as much as he’s going to enjoy finishing off those yogurt containers!