Description: This is the story of the life, love, and adventures of a beloved family dog, and how he delighted and touched his family and everyone he met.
Ralphie was born with a heart on his belly.
He loves food, his family, his friends, his neighbors.
He loves pretty much everything and everyone.
And they love him back.
And that’s how it is all through his life.
Read the book and fall in love with him too.
Rambunctious and hyperactive, Ralphie had already been returned to the animal shelter three times, but when Andrea and her husband adopted him and gave him a loving home where he was understood, accepted, and taught, he learned fast. As Ralphie’s human family grew, so did his capacity for love and the ways he could express it. He remained a loving and beloved family member who touched the hearts of the whole neighborhood until he was ready to say goodbye at the grand-old age of sixteen. Ralph, Always Loved will remind you of all that is good, and reaffirm your belief in love’s power to uplift and transform. Follow the tour by visiting Andrea Yerramilli’s page on iRead Book Tours.
Guest Post: Signs of Being Always Loved by Andrea Yerramilli
When I wrote the children’s picture book Ralphie, Always Loved, the story of my dog Ralphie, instead of beginning from the point when I met him for the first time, I chose to begin where I imagined how Ralphie got to be my Ralphie. He was a black dog, with white paws, a streak of white on his nose, a white-tipped tail, and a perfectly drawn white heart on his belly. I believed that the only way he could have come by those markings was if he was up in heaven, painting clouds just before he was born. And I imagined that when his earthly life was over, he would go back to exactly where he left off. After Ralphie passed on, I imagined that he was painting clouds and found myself looking up at the clouds for signs from him. And I’ve found them: heart-shaped clouds. Sometime it’s the cloud itself, and sometimes it’s in the sky between the clouds that makes a distinctive heart. Ralphie’s first birthday after he had passed was extremely difficult for me. I was missing him terribly and remembered the wonderful celebration we’d had for his sixteenth birthday a year before. I could not stop the tears. Something made me step out onto my deck and look up at the sky . . . and there it was, two clouds that, together, were shaped like a broken heart. The clouds seemed to be a message from Ralphie, who recognized that on this day—his first birthday apart from me in sixteen years—my heart was breaking. I think he wanted to let me know that he was okay and that I would be too. Of course, it could all be in my imagination, but it doesn’t matter. These signs help me and remind me that I’m always loved, just as I’ll always love Ralphie. I truly believe that those we deeply love never really leave us. They stay on in our memories and are Always Loved. And I often see hearts in the clouds to remind me of that fact.
Meet the Author: Andrea has always been an avid reader and that jumpstarted her imagination at a very early age. In fact she escaped to the Land of Make Believe more often than her mother liked.
She is a former marketing professional who is a mom to kids both with and without fur. Andrea says that it helps to have one foot planted firmly in reality while the other is foot loose and fancy-free in Imagination Land. She enjoys the best of both worlds. In 2013, Andrea and her husband started About Something Good (ASG) as a vehicle to curate, inspire and share goodness in the world. In a world where negative images flood the media, and words like “hate” get tossed around so easily, Andrea felt she needed a space that encouraged and focused on the words like “love” and the beauty that is life.
Stephanie Ward 