Don’t love dogs? Monsters may chase you in our next book, Book Three of the “Bash and Lucy” series, about the adventures of a dog-loving boy and his wise but mischievous golden retriever.

Why include monsters? Because our 7-year-old co-author, Michael, enjoys drawing monsters, and we’re considering adding some of his colorful illustrations to our next book. His idea: characters in the book who don’t love dogs will get chased by monsters.

Of course, our main illustrator will be the talented Heather Nichols of Portland, but she’s excited about possibly working Michael’s illustrations into the book.

Michael’s monsters are inspired in part by Scooby-Doo books, especially those written by Laurie Sutton. In fact, Michael loves Scooby-Doo books so much that he interviewed Laurie recently and made a special monster request.

In Laurie’s books, the monsters chase the gang. In our next book, Michael is considering casting his dog-loving sister, Ally, as a soccer coach who actually doesn’t like dogs and gets chased by monsters.

In our first two award-winning books, Coach Danny is not a dog lover. He doesn’t understand why the boys on his soccer team fuss so much over Lucy. But the boys are quick to point out that Lucy makes them laugh, soothes them when they’re upset, demonstrates the importance of sharing, and teaches them about helping kids with special needs.

Part of our aim, in our books, blog and author visits, is to teach kids all about what dogs do for kids. In fact, in this blog we’ve shared our stories about Autism Service Dogs of America and stories about diabetic service dogs .

Got an idea about how to incorporate Michael’s monsters into our next book? Please email us at BashAndLucy@gmail.com. Got an opinion about whether the monsters should chase characters who don’t love dogs? Let us know!