Toby’s Tale is a story of strength, perseverance and love. Toby is a Schnauzer puppy who selflessly leaves his family and embarks on a great adventure as he seeks his forever home. He learns about friendship, loyalty and kindness, but he also experiences cruelty and hopelessness. Toby’s Tale is full of colorful characters — both two-legged and four-legged — who play key roles as Toby takes each step of his journey.
Traveling with Toby on his journey to adulthood is an excursion along life’s road; a trip that shows how all creatures are searching for the safe, secure place where they belong. With that goal in mind, Toby overcomes hardship and loneliness by finding an inner strength stemming from the values of family, friendship, loyalty and faith.
Toby’s Tale is a learning experience shared in a visionary, fun way with valuable lessons about life. It’s a story about hard choices. An adventure that gives people four legs instead of two, by allowing them to view life through the eyes of a dog. A tale about belief, tenacity and love. As your fingers run through the pages, Toby will run through your heart.
Book sales have been just fair. I've been working on the marketing aspects, but it's admittedly a bit difficult to do from Costa Rica. The Kindle version has been in the top 100 of children's pet books and children's dog books on Amazon. Toby's Tale is being translated into Spanish as I'm hoping to get some momentum going in Costa Rican bookstores and libraries (and planning to market it in other Spanish-speaking countries). I tried to add Spanish at the bottom of this page, but nothing happened when I clicked the "Add language" button.
You probably know that cats have nine lives, but have you ever heard of a dog with two tails? That’s me. Well, sort of. I have my trustworthy tail, a feathery backside companion that broadcasts my moods. And I have my tale, a spicy story of adventure, excitement and danger that ties the past to the present and focuses on a sweet, cuddly, lovable, funny, clever, frisky little dog. Me.
My name is Toby. It used to be Buddy, and at one point I was called Cooper. But only for a short while. And before that, long before that, I was Fritz. In between, I can remember some less-than-flattering names that, out of respect for your tender ears and tender years, I won’t repeat. It still hurts to recall those long-ago days when the best I could hope to hear someone call me was “scrawny mutt” or “dirty dog.”
Those were the days when I was reduced to digging in piles of garbage for chicken bones, not a shred of finger lickin’ good meat left on them, when I considered it a “good day” if I managed to discover the remains of a dried-out ham-and-cheese sandwich that had been carelessly tossed toward a garbage can. And trying to find fresh water to drink — well, most of the time it was water à la mud.
Life is different now. The days of sifting through heaps of trash are over, and I have my very own shiny food bowl with my name etched into it. So epic! No more hunting to find a warm, dry place to sleep: I have my very own bed and a soft, sweet-smelling blue blanket. I have toys to chew, doggie treats to gobble down and a big backyard to run around in. I know again what it’s like to be loved, to have someone care about me. And, maybe more importantly, I know again what it’s like to have someone to love and care about.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Tales are best begun at the beginning, right? So that’s where I’ll start.
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Italian
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Already translated.
Translated by Alessandra Sole
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Author review: It was very easy to work with Alessandra and I would be happy for her to translate the next book in this series. |
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Japanese
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Already translated.
Translated by Rowena Obias
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Lídia Silva
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Author review: It was a pleasure to work with Lídia. She did a top-rate translation, was communicative and completed the translation on time. There were some formatting issues (something with the Babelcube website) that we finally managed to get resolved as unfortunately Babelcube customer service offered no help. I appreciate Lídia's perseverence and willingness to "stick it out" so we could finally get my middle-grade novel published in Portuguese. |
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Spanish
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Unavailable for translation.
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