When my son was in our syn­a­gogue pre-school, he was obsessed with one par­tic­u­lar child. He des­per­ate­ly want­ed the child to play with him. The child, for what­ev­er rea­son, was­n’t inter­est­ed in my son. We would tell my son that he should stop chas­ing after some­one who did­n’t want to be friends with him and instead become friends with the many kids who would love to be his friend. I wrote I Am Not a Dog Toy based on this expe­ri­ence. Bear is a ted­dy bear who is giv­en to a kid. Even though Kid has NO INTER­EST in Bear, Bear des­per­ate­ly wants to be Kid’s friend. Mean­while, the fam­i­ly dog real­ly wants to play with Bear. The sto­ry is about Bear learn­ing to accept that he is a dog toy and that Dog is his ide­al friend. My hope is to share the sto­ry with as many Jew­ish pre-schools as pos­si­ble, so chil­dren can learn to pur­sue good friendships.