Wolves was also a college project. So I actually didn’t have time to really think about anything I was doing in Wolves because it was a six-week project. So it had to be done quite quickly. So when I was putting it together, all I was thinking about was the best way I need to give the impression that the wolf was going in — the book was sort of happening around you sort of thing.
And so I hardly thought about the picture plans and I just did it sort of automatically and it just sort of worked out. I change it a little bit, but—so
The ending is very accidental cause originally I was thinking, “Well, I can’t actually let this rabbit die in the book.” And I just couldn’t think of a way out of it really but
When I’m doing picture books, I make tiny little dummies about this big so — with pens for drawings and I put the words in. I type them out and then I stick them in with a bit of tape so I can move them about.
And I got to the page where the rabbit discovers this wolf behind him. And then the next page there was just blank. And I was looking and I thought, “Well, I’ve got to find a way that this rabbit wins out over this wolf and finds a way of beating this wolf.” But when I turned the page in my little dummy, because it was blank, I just thought he got eaten.
And then that made me laugh and so I wrote that and showed it to my daughter who was only about — she was six, I think, at the time. And when I showed it to her, she laughed as well. And so I thought, “Well, I’ll just leave it.” And because it wasn’t ever intended for publication, it was just meant to be a college project, I just thought, “Well, it doesn’t really matter anyway. I’ll just leave it in.”
But, you know, kids tend to
Little ones — they like to believe there’s an alternative ending and they like to believe the alternative ending. And then the older they get, the more blood-thirsty they get and they like to believe that the rabbit is dead, which is fine by me!