BookZone Reviews welcomes Amy Flanagan as she shares about her latest release, Mrs. R. Snugglesworth, Attorny-at-Law.
So I Had This Idea for a Story About a Dog Named Mrs. R. Snugglesworth Who Goes to Law School…
If you have a loved one – be it a pet, friend, or family
member, it’s likely you’ve given them an affectionate nickname. When my
children were young, they had a whole bevy of nicknames that bore no
relationship to their actual names – Lady Lunchbox, Smudge, Dude-a-saurus Rex,
Peanut Butters, and so on. Years later, we got our first dog, and her nicknames
were plentiful too – Baked Potato, Sweet Pea, Sweet Potato, Best Big Girl, Super-Duper
Best Big Girl, Super-Snuggler, Mrs. Snugglesworth. . . until finally she became
“Mrs. R. Snugglesworth.” Now THAT was a nickname, and we used it so often that
our dog began to respond when she heard it.
With her new name, came a new occupation. “The dog is my lawyer,” our daughter announced one morning. Previously, her fish had been her attorney, but they had a falling out and our daughter was in the market for new representation.
“Why do you need a lawyer?” I inquired, having been unaware that she’d retained her fish earlier in the year.
“Just in case,” my daughter replied. (I later learned that she had been using her ceiling fan as a carnival ride for stuffed animals, an activity she (rightly) suspected would be frowned upon.)
Now that we had a lawyer in the house, Mrs. R. Snugglesworth was called upon anytime my son or daughter ran into a spot of trouble. “Talk to our lawyer,” they said, when my husband or I ran an interrogation about how the towel bar became dislodged from the bathroom wall.
Neither child had shown a propensity for hanging up towels,
and it seemed very unlikely that the simple hanging of a towel would cause the
towel bar to spontaneously detach. Strong
circumstantial evidence suggested that the towel bar was used in pursuit of
furthering their gymnastics career. Clearly, sound legal representation was
required.
A couple of years passed, and as the kids grew and I had more free time, I thought about writing a book. I’d been writing in a business setting for years and was well-versed in the many drafts and legions of feedback required to get it right. I just needed an idea – a commercially-viable idea for an unsaturated market, and preferably something I was familiar with from my own life…which turned out to be a dog who sidelined as a lawyer!
Evenings passed, and Mrs. R. Snugglesworth’s character emerged—much of it derived from our life at home. However, unlike our home life, the fictional Mrs. R. Snugglesworth would represent other dogs, not humans. Told from her perspective, readers would see into the entire canine legal system—jury duty, law school, the bar exam, obtaining clients, and what dogs really think of the humans in their lives. (In Mrs. R.’s life, her humans exist solely to run the vacuum, prepare meals, and shower her with nicknames that lead her to (rightly, in her opinion), assume she is the Best at Everything.)
18 months later, Mrs. R. Snugglesworth, Attorney-at-Law was ready for publication. I thought it was funny. My friends and family thought it was funny. My editors thought it was funny (and more importantly, so did their kids)! And most rewarding, people outside of those groups think it’s funny – just see https://www.mrsrsnugglesworth.com/news-reviews!
To this day, we refer to our older dog as “Mrs. R. Snugglesworth.” She’s still on retainer, though now she prefers higher-profile cases, typically related to who ate the last slice of leftover pizza.
And as for that “R” in her name? We never did figure out what stood for—Rambunctious? Ricotta? Radiant? Rhubarb? Perhaps we’ll find out some day!
To learn more about the characters, contact the author, or get your own copy, visit https://www.mrsrsnugglesworth.com
Giveaway
Written by Amy Flanagan
Illustrated by Jon Davis
Ages 5+ | 90 Pages
Publisher: Whitefox | IBN-13: 9781915036094
About the Author
Amy Flanagan is an Instructional Designer and children’s author living with her family in the Chicago suburb of Batavia. She began writing Mrs. R. Snugglesworth, Attorney-at-Law in early 2021 to stay busy during the long pandemic winter. She wanted to create something that would make kids (and adults) laugh out loud. She is already working on the second book in the “Mrs. R.” series. Like you, she wonders what the ‘R’ stands for.
About the Illustrator
Visit him at https://www.jonsmind.com.
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