The Beloved Dearly

Ernie is a twelve-year-old tycoon, always on the lookout for a fast buck. This time he stumbles onto a money-making bonanza: pet funerals. He hires Dusty to decorate the burial boxes and Tony to dig the holes, but his prize find is Swimming Pool, a tomboy who can cry on cue.Business goes through the roof -- until Ernie loses Swimming Pool over a raise and the whole venture unravels. Here is a rollicking, fun-spirited novel about friendship, loss, business -- and how we learn to express our feelings.

Doug Cooney is the author of the middle-grade novels The
Beloved Dearly and I Know Who Likes You. His musical
adaptation of George Saunders's The Very Persistent Gappers of
Frip recently premiered at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles,
produced by the Mark Taper Forum P.L.A.Y. Cooney also teaches songwriting
and collaboration for Voices Within, an educational outreach program of
the Los Angeles Master Chorale. He divides his time between Los Angeles
and South Florida. You can visit him at www.dougcooney.com.

Tony DiTerlizzi is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and illustrator who has been creating books for twenty years. From fanciful picture books, such as Jimmy Zangwow’s Out-of-This-World Moon-Pie Adventure and The Spider and the Fly (a Caldecott Honor Book), to fantastic middle grade novels like Kenny & the Dragon and the WondLa trilogy, Tony imbues each story with his rich imagination. He created The Spiderwick Chronicles with Holly Black, which has sold millions of copies around the world. You can learn more about Tony at DiTerlizzi.com.