Bobbi's Gone

Welcome to the shadowy and not-so-shadowy space behind Sally's books. That's Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. This preamble will be pasted to the top of each post, so feel free to skip it in future.

The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. 

Bobbi's Gone Post 12

Bobbi's Gone (2002) is a mystery for younger readers. Like Welcome to the Weirdie Club (Post 9), this one had its name changed by the publisher, but although the change was no more than two added letters, it changed the whole point of the story. Bobbi's young owner is upset when his dog disappears, but rather than mope around, he follows up clues. Everything seems to point to Bobbi having been stolen... but why? As the boy follows clues, readers have the same opportunity to solve the mystery. The answer lies in natural canine behaviour, and it devolves that Bobbi had really gone off for a logical reason. I won't give away the exact reason here, but clued in readers might guess when I tell you the book's original title was Bob's Gone and that the change made the dog's reason less than logical after all.

To this day I'm not sure whether the change was made in full knowledge of its implications or whether what I thought was as plain as the nose on Bob/Bobbi's little face was not actually as plain to the editorial mind as it was to the authorial one. Not to worry! Bobbi was found and so there was a happy ending.