One night, I was reading the most boring children’s book in the long history of the world to my daughter, Sophy (who was six at the time). Jim Field: ‘I was lucky enough to visit Yosemite National Park and Kings Canyon in California a couple of years ago, both are utterly incredible places and it was great to have the opportunity to put pencil to paper and try and capture these beautiful landscapes for this book. Anyway, it was a picture book about a nice, friendly, perfectly boring rabbit and a nice, friendly, perfectly boring bear. It’s not because I’m nice and friendly and perfect: it’s not because she is nice and friendly and perfect (though she is my favourite person on earth): It’s because I got her to do loads of unpaid work on the book, and stole all her ideas. 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.

She enjoyed it enormously, but, of course, it wasn’t perfect (because nothing is perfect, especially the very rough first try at a story). She laughed at the good bits, frowned at the bad bits, and, at one point (while I was reading her the latest version of a funny scene), burst into tears. 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? From novelist and playwright Julian Gough, and the winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, Jim Field, this is a tale of Mystery!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. And I wanted to do something quite hard: to combine the charm and humour and complicated, funny, interesting characters of Winnie the Pooh with the weird, different-kind-of-interesting, real-life facts of David Attenborough’s wildlife documentaries. Jim Field: ‘I then developed this character sheet which was really useful to keep the character consistent throughout the book.

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).Jim Field: ‘Julian suggested making Bear more of a mother character, actually his description was more “a Big Mumma” so I made her bigger boned and rounded the design more than the previous bears. It’s important to refer back to the design sheet as you find the character shifts and changes when you draw it lots of times.

Jim Field: ‘This was the rabbit design that “stuck”, it captured his grumpy qualities and it felt like he had plenty of scope for further characterisation. 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. something which will get handed on to younger brothers and sisters (because it's a book for boys and girls) and probably onto the next generation.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. So my daughter and I started talking about how terrible the book was, and about how it could be better. 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!