The fewer the words, the harder the job.
Finding non-anthropomorphic children’s books about animals with exquisite rhyme and repetition is remarkably difficult. When our daughter turned two, that crucial age for language acquisition, we discovered Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy, and we immediately fell under the magic of New Zealand author-illustrator Lynley Dodd. We devoured every book we could find, meeting the unforgettable cast of characters: Hairy Maclary himself, Schnitzel von Krumm with his very low tum, Bitzer Maloney all skinny and bony, Muffin McLay like a bundle of hay, and the formidable feline brigade including Scarface Claw the toughest Tom in town, the mischievous Slinky Malinki, Greywacke Jones, Mushroom Magee and others.
Video Credit: Penguin Books NZ
At first glance, Dodd’s picture-book menagerie appears modest: a scruffy terrier who trots to the dairy, a slender feline with thieving paws, a vain tomcat who prowls by moonlight. Yet, behind those rollicking rhymes and simple plots lies skilled linguistic daring disguised as playful verse.
What a kerfuffle,
a scramble of paws,
a tangle of bodies,
a jumble of jaws.
With squawking and yowling
and mournful miaow,
they really were making
a TERRIBLE row.
Lynley Dodd – Rumpus at the Vet
Video Credit: Penguin Books NZ
And other effortless-looking rhymes abound in Dodd’s books. Effortless it is not. Behind every ‘kerfuffle’ and ‘shemozzle’ or ‘hullabaloo’ there is a lifetime of disciplined attention. She drafts up to 25 versions of a book before any editor sees her work. She even “conducts” sentences with her arms to confirm rhythm and meaning are locked together.
[Children] deserve the very best in words, really. You’ve got to get the language right to make it sing for them.
When they’re little, they’re very ready for it – ready to learn, ready to say things, repeat things.
It’s very satisfying and very nice to be able to write for an audience that’s so enthusiastic.
RNZ – Dame Lynley Dodd: ‘Children deserve the very best in words’
This meticulous approach has paid dividends: since Hairy’s first trot ‘out of the gate and off for a walk’ in 1983, the series has sold more than 11 million copies worldwide, spawning stage plays, orchestral adaptations, bronze statues on the waterfront of Tauranga, a coastal city in New Zealand, or television shorts.
These shorts, which can be found on YouTube, became some of our daughter’s first screen content, as the animation was done very slowly, almost like animated books. We would have the books ready and turn the pages when the video transitioned to the next scene.
Dodd was born in Rotorua, New Zealand, in 1941 and grew up in the vast Kaingaroa Forest, surrounded by animals and the rhythms of isolated rural life. In those times, children’s books maintained a distinctly serious tone. Later, Dodd discovered Dr. Seuss and his children’s books arrived like a breath of fresh air. Her father called her “Arabella Slapcabbage”, a playful moniker that reveals the off-beat phrasing that permeated Dodd’s childhood.
Silly language was very much a part of our lives so stringing together nice sentences and being conscious of interesting words were the sorts of things I enjoyed as a child.
Dr. Seuss reveled in pure linguistic anarchy and rubber-band rhymes. “Fotta-fa-Zee, “Truffula trees, “Sneetches,” and “Thneeds” existed purely for the joy of sound, offering children the glorious permission to be silly. Dodd absorbed this lesson but transformed it into something new. Where Seuss invented words, she excavates English gems that most adults have forgotten exist. This philosophy puts her at odds with the dumbed-down approach that sometimes dominates children’s publishing. When a reviewer scolded her for using bellicose (chosen, she notes, for its alliterative and onomatopoeic qualities), suggesting she was “running out of vocabulary appropriate to the age of the reader,” Dodd shot back with characteristic directness: “Haven’t you a dictionary in the house?”
I am unrepentant – if we spend our time writing only language appropriate to the age of the reader, they will never learn anything new. How boring! Anyway, the consumers have had the last word on the matter. Feedback suggests that they love the new words. One child was asked by his mother in a supermarket, ‘What shall we have for tea?’ ‘A snippet of veal [from Caterwaul Caper]: was the reply.
From Lynley Dodd’s lecture on receiving the Margaret Mahy Award – Writing the Pictures and Painting the Words
Another child declared during a parental argument: “Stop that cacophonous noise!” [also from Caterwaul Caper]
Video Credit: WebRathan
These anecdotes prove Dodd’s central thesis: that words can behave like toys, ready to be bent, stacked, pushed, and stretched into new shapes, if only the writer trusts children’s craving for sophisticated sounds.
For me the most important thing is to try to sound spontaneous and natural, to amuse and entertain, and if the children learn a few new juicy words and phrases along the way, so much the better.
From Lynley Dodd’s lecture on receiving the Margaret Mahy Award – Writing the Pictures and Painting the Words
Dodd’s creative process is fundamentally dual-natured, as she is both the writer and illustrator of her books (“writes the pictures and paints the words”). Being her own illustrator eliminates the creative compromises that can dilute the cohesion of a picture book.
I don’t have to argue with anyone about interpretation. I work on words and pictures together from the start.
People often ask me, which come first, pictures or words? I have to say that they come at the same time. The process begins with the chosen idea floating around in the mind, gathering visual images and word patterns as it goes – nothing specific, just a feel, a mood.
From Lynley Dodd’s lecture on receiving the Margaret Mahy Award – Writing the Pictures and Painting the Words
As Lynley explains, the last picture of the book is often the one Lynley thinks about first.
Dodd rejects the debate about whether words or pictures matter more in children’s literature. “Some believe that the words are more important than the pictures, others the opposite, but I feel that neither should be the case in a good picture book,” she explains. “Even if each half could stand alone, the whole should be an equal and perfectly integrated partnership and more than the sum of its parts.”
This philosophy aligns with critic John Rowe Townsend’s assertion that “picture books are a first introduction to art and literature, no less,” making excellence not optional but essential.
Dodd’s dual mastery of words and images shines brightest in how she handles character emotion without resorting to human traits. “They are never anthropomorphic but I hope you can tell from their eyes what is going on in their heads,” she notes.
Consider her description of Hairy Maclary winning “The Scruffiest Cat” in Showbusiness: “I wanted to show from his expression that although he was chuffed to receive the first prize he had ever had his life, he was also embarrassed lest one of his doggy mates should catch him in such a compromising situation.”
This is sophisticated emotional storytelling, a mix of pride and social anxiety, conveyed entirely through canine body language, which explains why Dodd’s seemingly simple books achieve such lasting resonance across generations of children and parents.
Video Credit: WebRathan
When we get playful, and talk and paint in rhymes, we start to see things in a different light. And Dodd sees story seeds all around her.
Where do ideas come from?
I find ideas everywhere. I tell children that I have ‘ideas antennae’ sticking out of my head, ready to collect anything that takes my fancy. Funny names and juicy words to roll around the tongue, things I see, things people say and do, Natural History programmes, items of news, family happenings etc. I keep an Ideas Book, which is a motley collection of bits; lists of words, scraps of drawing, newspaper cuttings, snatches of storyline and verse. All reminders for the day when they might prove useful. There is one scrap in the book, a rough sketch of a small hairy dog, under which I wrote:
‘One morning at nine,
on the way to the park,
went Hairy Maclary
from Donaldson’s Dairy’
This went on to become VERY useful.
Her “ideas antennae” are, in fact, systematic attention to the quotidian, photos, news headlines, overheard remarks, and minor domestic dramas that many of us overlook, which turns out to be quite the creative fuel. Because the extraordinary often emerges not from avoiding the ordinary, but from paying extraordinary attention to it.
Hairy Maclary’s origin sprang from a butcher-shop glimpse of a dog carrying an oversize bone, an incident she sketched on scrap paper and later expanded into Hairy Maclary’s Bone.
“I was down in Lower Hutt buying the weekly meat for the family… and I looked back across the road as I was about to stick the key in the ignition and there was a dog walking away from the butchers with a whole lot of meat in his jaws. I thought ‘aha, you’re going to have difficulty getting home if your friends find you’. And the lightbulb went off in the head. I thought ‘aha, there’s number two. I’ll do that’.”
Dodd then returned to the butcher’s shop and asked for their largest bone. When he asked why, she said, “trying to keep my voice low”, that she wanted to draw it.
“And he shouted ‘you want to draw it! What for? I said ‘I’ve got to try and put it in a book’.
“I took it home, I drew it and then I made soup out of it, it was quite good.”
Video Credit: VMA (The Visual Media Archive)
A National Geographic photo series of a cat unlocking a Vatican door triggered Slinky Malinki, Open the Door.
Video Credit: VMA (The Visual Media Archive)
All writers need an ideas notebook/folder, she insists. However, there is a crucial distinction: she doesn’t simply copy what she finds. When discussing the ethics of adapting other people’s animal stories, her advice is characteristically direct: ‘Change them—make them your own.’
This philosophy of transformation rather than imitation extends to Dodd’s entire creative process, where patience plays as crucial a role as inspiration.
But then of course marinating time is very good too. I find with my work particularly, that to be able to put it away for a while and come back to it, the mistakes or the awkwardness suddenly jumps out at you. I spend a very long time in the marinating process!
Dodd’s calendar follows along this pattern:
January to June is a period of marination, as she flicks through her Ideas Book, doodles, visualizes artwork, and lets notions stew. By August, she sends a complete dummy to the publisher, with little changes afterward (see those up to 25 draft versions). From September to December, she works on the book’s final look.
Dr Seuss gave her the sharpest counsel: “Never get wedded to a good line.” The rule inoculates her against sunk-cost sentimentality; anything that blunts rhythm, clarity, or imagery is dumped, no matter how clever.
By far the best [advice] I’ve been given was by Dr Seuss, which is a well-known one actually, ‘Never get wedded to a good line’ – a version of ‘Be prepared to murder your darlings!’
Which is such a useful piece of advice – you should never carry on with something which actually may be niggling at you to be changed.
Magazinestoday – “It’s Been Great” – Dame Lynley Dodd
At 83, Dodd remains “driven up the wall” by well-meaning acquaintances who casually announce their plans to throw around a picture book.
I want to wave them around to show how much work it is to actually get those few words right and to make them good enough for children.
RNZ – Dame Lynley Dodd: ‘Children deserve the very best in words’
The frustration is understandable. Dodd can agonize for days over getting a few lines to rhyme. They need to have that light quality of singing, because language ferments in us long after we finish reading it, hearing it, or speaking it. And perhaps that’s why when I hear ‘Bottomley Potts’ I can already say in my mind ‘covered in spots’, and Hercules Morse is, of course, as big as a horse.
Dodd’s methods seem almost anachronistic in an era where social media rewards 15-second snippets. And perhaps we have a paradox of our times: an instant-gratification culture makes patience-based creativity look even more complex and valuable.
So notice more. Bend ideas until they click. There are still so many little worlds hiding in plain sight, waiting, like Hairy Maclary, to go off for a walk.
Note: This article about Lynley Dodd has been marinating in my digital Ideas Book for a few years now, a draft containing only that “antennae” quote until its message suddenly crystallized. Who knows how many years until that Bluey draft becomes an article?