Sophie Blackall, IF WE WERE DOGS
Totally Booked with Zibby
Zibby Owens
4.5 • 643 Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At Totally Booked: Live! at the Whitby Hotel, Zibby interviews two-time Caldecott Medalist Sophie Blackall about her marvelous new picture book, IF WE WERE DOGS. Sophie shares the charming real-life inspirations behind the story—from an exuberant farm dog to a bookish pup in Prospect Park—and opens up about creating the book during her husband’s unexpected heart surgery. She also reflects on the joys and challenges of writing and illustrating, the dynamics of childhood friendships, and the deep connection she finds with young readers.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Totally Booked Live at The Whitby. I am thrilled to be here with Sophie Blackall, |
| 0:07.5 | who has been on my podcast before and is now back with If We Were Dogs. Congratulations. |
| 0:13.3 | Thank you, Sibby. It's lovely to be here and to see all of you. |
| 0:17.0 | I mean, if we were dogs, how would we be sitting right now? |
| 0:19.8 | Oh, well, I think at a table with hats and having demolished pretty much everything in front of us. |
| 0:27.3 | Tell us about your new book. |
| 0:30.2 | Every book I do comes about in a completely different way, and I think I have done 60 of them now, which suddenly makes me feel very old. |
| 0:39.2 | This one came about in a fractured way. |
| 0:41.8 | There were three things, three short stories, if I may. |
| 0:44.8 | You may. |
| 0:45.4 | One, I met a nine-year-old child who began talking to me in the middle of a sentence the way children do, which is what I love about them. |
| 0:53.7 | She said, and also, I had never met this child before. |
| 0:57.8 | And also, she said, I love dogs, but I'm worried that people might not know I love dogs, |
| 1:04.3 | and I'm starting school in the fall, and they might not know. |
| 1:07.1 | So I have to get dog everything. |
| 1:08.8 | I have to get a dog backpack and dog socks. |
| 1:10.6 | And she listed this whole thing. She had this plan, and I thought to get dog everything. I have to get a dog backpack and dog socks. And she |
| 1:11.0 | listed this whole thing. She had this plan and I thought, this is amazing. This is gold. That was one. |
| 1:17.4 | Number two, I split my time between Brooklyn, New York and up in the cat schools, where we have a farm dog |
| 1:23.9 | that lives nearby called Diesel, who is a golden retriever and is the most exuberant dog |
| 1:28.9 | you have ever met in your life. Diesel owns the valley, turns up on our doorstep, will sit overnight waiting for us. And when we open the door in the morning, he is saying, hi, hi, hi, I've been here all night, are you ready? Let's go and play. I've just rolled in a skunk, and isn't this great and I love you |
| 1:44.3 | and let me lick you and again skunk |
... |
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