I have several books for younger readers. My favorite is a book called Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! and I think it’s my favorite because it’s based on my own gardening experiences. I’ve been battling rabbits for years and decided that I would write a story.
The nice thing about being a writer is that you can change your world. If you can’t beat the bunnies in your own backyard, you can beat them in a book. Interestingly, once I wrote the story, the gardener still didn’t win, either. It’s a fun story about a crabby, curmudgeonly gardener named Mr. McGreely who has never gardened before in his life. This spring he decides to plant a garden and is so proud of his vegetables.
One day when he goes out to admire his growing carrots and tomatoes, he discovers that rabbits have chewed them. So he puts up a little fence which they hopped over, and then he puts up a bigger fence, which they dig under.
Then he builds what I would have loved to have done in my own yard, he builds a moat — digs a moat — and the bunnies swim through it. Interestingly, when you read that, with kindergartners they always wanna put an alligator in the moat. That would solve the problem.
Of course the bunnies swim through it so he puts up this gigantic fort thing, search lights and pad lights and fences. That doesn’t work, either. So eventually he ends up sharing, but grudgingly.
The sequel to the book is called Tippy-Tippy-Tippy, Hide! and the bunnies, of course, wanna come and stay for the winter this time. He’s still not good friends with the rabbits and so, of course, he doesn’t want them. The whole book is about the struggle between man versus rabbit trying to keep them out of his house. Those, I think, are two of my favorite books for younger readers.