Rabbit and Bear: Rabbit's Bad Habits: Book 1

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I realised that our story was about ten million billion times better than the book we had read. So, when Sophy was asleep, I stayed up late, and wrote it all down… There was no conflict; no drama; no STORY. All the animals were polite, well-behaved, and perfect. They had nothing to learn, and nowhere to go. No problem to solve. What with Bear’s snoring, and a BANG!BANG!BANG! noise from up in the tree, Rabbit knows that Something Simply Has To Be Done.

At one point, a third friendly, boring animal arrived, just to give the illustrator something new to draw (she must have been getting bored too). From novelist and playwright Julian Gough, and the winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, Jim Field, this is a tale of Mystery! Friendship! Progress! … and all kinds of getting muddy. Hello Yellow - 80 Books to Help Children Nurture Good Mental Health and Support With Anxiety and Wellbeing - From novelist and playwright Julian Gough, and the winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, Jim Field, this is a story of friends, enemies, and how to avoid being pooped on by an icebear. Gorgeously illustrated and with a classic feel, this is a brilliantly funny story of a rabbit and a bear … on the day that a new creature arrives in their valley, trying to Change Everything. Ideal for readers moving on from picture books.

From novelist and playwright Julian Gough, and the winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, Jim Field, this is a tale of friendship, wisdom, and how to be REALLY NOISY. Then there’s a loud CRUNCH! from Very Near By. It sounds like the world’s largest rabbit, eating the world’s largest carrot.

And no animal I know is nice, friendly and perfect. How boring would THAT be? Animals wee on the carpet sometimes, and sniff each other’s bottoms ALL the time, and chew the furniture. And that’s just our pet cat, Aífe. (If you don’t keep her litter tray clean, she will deliberately poo in your shoe.) And wild animals… are even wilder than that! What is the point of having bears and rabbits in your story if they aren’t WILD, and doing the crazy, surprising, and often rather rude things real bears and rabbits do?Now, I am not nice, friendly, and perfect. My daughter is not nice, friendly, and perfect. Nobody I know is nice, friendly, and perfect. Everyone I know is complicated and sometimes nice and sometimes nasty and sometimes friendly and sometimes angry and sometimes sulky and sometimes funny and sometimes stupid and sometimes clever and always interesting. Rabbit’s Bad Habits is a breath of fresh air in children’s fiction, a laugh-out-loud story of rabbit and wolf and bear, of avalanches and snowmen. The sort of story that makes you want to send your children to bed early, so you can read it to them.’ Neil Gaiman But high in the branches, perhaps Bear can show Rabbit how to see the world from a different place … But of course it took AN INCREDIBLY LONG TIME to get from our rough and scruffy bedtime story to the finished book ( Rabbit’s Bad Habits, which was finally published this year with Jim Field’s amazing pictures). I had to get the story as good as I could get it, before my agent could look for a publisher, and get an award-winning, genius illustrator like Jim to bring it to life. And that took a couple of years, because I did it in my spare time. I was good at writing novels (and plays, and poems, and things like the ending to Minecraft, which I wrote for Notch): but I was still learning to write children’s books. Anyway, it was a picture book about a nice, friendly, perfectly boring rabbit and a nice, friendly, perfectly boring bear.

The next book in the bestselling series for newly independent readers with these laugh-out-loud tales of friendship, adventure and a little bit of poo!Icebear has arrived in Rabbit and Bear’s valley, and he wants to be king. He’s big and scary, and the more kind and understanding the animals are, the meaner he becomes. What if the new animal that arrived was a wolf?” said my daughter. “And then the wolf could chase the rabbit!” You couldn’t tell any of the animals apart: they all talked the same, and acted the same, and were nice and friendly to each other, until the book ended, or the reader died of boredom, whichever came first. Great! And what if the rabbit doesn’t help the bear build a snowman? What if the rabbit is jealous, and tries to build his own bigger, better snowman?”