Love is All You Need :)

What do you do when your friends need some support? You make room for them of course! We had an awesome visit from author & illustrator Barbara Valenza, who shared her book and brought a VERY special stuffed friend with her! Don’t miss the interview with Barbara after the project in this post!

We read Little Lovedog’s Long Walk Home by Barbara Valenza. It’s time for Little Lovedog’s birthday, but no one wants to come to his party. The dachshund begins to sadly trudge home. But what’s this? Along the way, he meets a number of animals who could really use a lift on his long back. Soon, the entire gang arrives home with Little Lovedog, ready to party and celebrate his big day!

Annnnnd update! Little Lovedog’s Long Walk Home won a 2023 Rubery Book Award, was a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Award, and won Honorable Mention at the Purple Dragonfly Book Awards. Way to go Barbara and Little Lovedog!

You’ll need:

  • 2 boxes (ours were 4.5” X 4.5” x 9” craft boxes, but large tissue boxes work too!)
  • 1 paper cup
  • 1 jumbo pom pom
  • Construction paper
  • String or yarn
  • A variety of small boxes and cups
  • Scissors, tape, and glue for construction
  • Markers for decorating

This project is basically a simple pull strong box dog (very similar to this one). Just add a paper cup muzzle, a pom pom nose, some ears, eyes, and a tail! We used a ribbon to create the collar, and a piece of yarn as the leash. We also couldn’t resist adding some little heart stickers.

However! Since Little Lovedog is a story about a dachshund, we nested one box inside another to create an expanding pup that can carry lots of friends on its back!

Next, we made five friends with various little cups and construction paper. We also added some snippets of self-adhesive foam to the sides of the cups to prevents them from sliding off the dog’s back.

And while the kids were working on those animals, their dogs took a little rest on our windowsill:

Kids then placed their animal cups around the gallery and took a walk with their dogs, picking up friends as they went! The journey ended at the Lovedog family’s mailbox, where Barbara was waiting to hand out heart erasers and special bookmarks!

We also had a drawing for three super cute gift bags with signed copies of the book and a very furry stuffed dachshund. CUTENESS.


I was delighted to catch up with Barbara after story time, and ask her a few questions!

Please tell us a little about yourself!

Storytelling has been one of my favorite things to do since…forever! I remember when I was about seven years old, my best friend and I would sit under a cherry tree, writing and drawing stories about little animals. I carried my love of storytelling to college with me, where I earned a degree in communications and theatre. After college, I moved to New York City where I worked in the art department of Jim Henson Productions (The Muppets—super fun), and then in educational publishing at an editorial and design firm with wonderful clients like Scholastic and the Museum of Natural History. I have worked for many years in professional communications from public relations to branding and messaging to graphic design. No matter what form of storytelling I’m working on, I just love the way images and words complement each other to bring a story to life, and that is definitely at the heart of picture books!

How did Little Lovedog’s Long Walk Home come about?

One of the things that makes me really mad is bullying, especially when someone is made fun of for being seen as different from others. I was working on a completely separate story about cats and dogs not getting along when I drew an unusually long dachshund. The minute I saw him, I knew he was the one getting bullied. I just fell in love with him. He was so full of love with no one to share it with. And so, Little Lovedog’s story began. I thought about being little and those awful feelings of being laughed at or being lonely because no one wants to come to your party. I asked myself questions: Where does he go after being laughed at? What happens on his way home? As he began his long walk home, the one thing that quickly came to light was his spirit of kindness, regardless of being bullied. I really wanted him to wind up surrounded by love with lots of new friends.

There are a lot of characters Little Lovedog carries in the story – do any of them have special significance to you?

Actually, it’s the dog who follows Little Lovedog home who makes me smile the most. He’s at the beginning of the story near the crowd of other dogs who are making fun of Little Lovedog, but he’s not laughing with them. I think maybe he has been bullied too, for being small, for being a Chihauhau (the number one smallest dog breed!). But, he thinks for himself and does the right thing—he’s nice to someone who needs a friend. He even brings a new balloon to cheer Little Lovedog up.

What’s the best part of reading your book aloud to kids?

Oh, my gosh! Their reactions are priceless. One little girl, who couldn’t have been more than two, kept coming up during a reading pointing at Little Lovedog and saying his name. And one little boy, who found out I draw my illustrations using color pencils, asked me to come over and draw with him because he has color pencils too. I just love when they all react happily to Little Lovedog ultimately having the best birthday ever. And I hope it stays with them—celebrating our differences.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a new picture book about animals trading places and learning to be their true self as well as more stories about kindness triumphing over bullying!


Many thanks for Barbara Valenza (and her adorable homemade stuffed Little Lovedog) for coming to our library and sharing your fabulous story with us!

Operators Are Standing By

Hey, how are you doing? The answer to that question may vary hour to hour, but here’s a chance to voice those feelings on your very own “Feel-O-Fone” line! All you need are a few household items to chat with your head and your heart.

We recommend reading The Boy With Big, Big Feelings, written by Britney Winn Lee, and illustrated by Jacob Souva (Beaming Books, 2019). Read here by Hannah Michahelles. A boy’s emotions are so big, he worries he can’t hold them in, deal with them, or make friends. But he soon learns that big hearts are better then ok, they’re the BEST!

You’ll need:

  • 1 large tissue box
  • 1 toilet paper roll
  • Construction paper
  • 1 large paper clip
  • A bit of string, ribbon, shoelace, or wire
  • Scissors and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating

Wrap your tissue box and toilet paper tube with construction paper, then decorate your phone with markers. I used pushpins to create textured buttons on my phone, but you can also glue on clothing buttons, bottle caps, or draw the buttons with markers.

The toilet paper tube is the phone’s “receiver.” To hang the receiver, slightly unfold a large paper clip, then tape it to the side of the box. The receiver tube slides onto the bent paperclip:

Connect the receiver to the phone box with a piece of ribbon, string, or a shoelace (I used the cable from an ancient set of ear buds). Hang the phone on the wall, and you’re done! To operate the Feel-O-Phone, unhook the receiver and simply talk…tell it how you’re feeling! Happy? Sad? Scared? Worried? Silly? Share away, operators are standing by…

The Gift of Garden

the gift of garden

Create some potted plants, and then share the love with a delightful on-the-go garden!

We read Anywhere Farm, written by Phyllis Root, and illustrated by G. Brian Karas (Candlewick Press, 2017). Want to grow a farm anywhere? All you need is soil, sunshine, water, and a seed. From alleyways to the insides of a old trumpet, your garden will blossom and bloom! The rhymes in this book are so clever and endearing, and the illustrations are delightful depictions of gardens everywhere and anywhere. A highly recommended story time read!

You’ll need:

  • Several toilet paper and paper towel tubes
  • A selection of construction paper
  • A selection of pipe cleaners
  • Scissors, glue, and tape for construction

For the optional wagon:

  • 1 large tissue box
  • 1 wheel assembly (more on this below)
  • 2 drinking straws (our were 10″ long)
  • An 16.5″ piece of string
  • 1 small rectangle of tagboard (approximately 1.25″ x 2″)

little potted plants

First, your garden! Cut toilet paper and paper towel tubes down to 2″. Then create plants using construction paper and pipe cleaners (we also provided , patterned tape, fabric flowers, tissue paper, and plastic buttons for decorating). We asked kids to make at least one pot that wouldn’t mind trading at the end of story time.

You can end the project with the pots, or you can take it a step further…we loved the idea of an anywhere garden on-the-go, so we crafted tissue box wagons to make things mobile! The wagon and wheel assembly instructions can be found on this post.

finished red wagonWhen the wagons were assembled, kids popped their potted plants in and we circled the library’s lobby. Everyone was invited to trade at least one pot with Katie (and we pre-made a number pots for this purpose).

sharing plants

Some kids also traded with each other spontaneously, which was VERY sweet!