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

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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. Then there’s a loud CRUNCH! from Very Near By. It sounds like the world’s largest rabbit, eating the world’s largest carrot. 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. 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! Shortlisted for the Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Award and the Children’s Book of the Year in the Irish Book Awards*

What if the new animal that arrived was a wolf?” said my daughter. “And then the wolf could chase the rabbit!” People often ask writers, “where do you get your ideas?” And the answer is: we steal them from our children… 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.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. 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. 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.

As a follow-up to Tara's first book Rabbit & Bear Make a Wish, the graphic novel Rabbit & Bear Return with the Light delves deeper into the human existence as we quest to find meaning. Dealing with themes of purpose, loss, grief, depression, the book brings its reader along for the ride, letting them know that finding and sharing light is not only possible, but probable with the help of friends and insight.But high in the branches, perhaps Bear can show Rabbit how to see the world from a different place … 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?