The secret lives of dogs and cats has been your perennial theme. Can you tell us a little bit about any pets you have now? There are two schools of thought when it comes to complexity of vocabulary for young readers, and apparently Lynley Dodd’s work has sometimes been criticised for including words beyond the comprehension of her audience. Another school of thought believes that children should be exposed to vocabulary beyond their comprehension; this is exactly how they learn. I fall into the second camp, and I doubt Dodd would have achieved such perfect rhythm and meter if she had limited herself to words from a children’s dictionary. In the end, does it matter if children don’t know the exact meaning of some words? The illustrations and the language are more than enough to compensate. NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATION

Scarface Claw may have been inspired (consciously or not) by the American Little Golden Book classic The Large and Growly Bear. Like Scarface Claw, the Large and Growly Bear is an outwardly fierce creature who takes great delight in scaring the creatures around him. The climax is that he is scared of his own reflection in a pond. I expect this plot comes from something even older — probably a folk or fairy tale. I simply haven’t found it yet.

Scarface Claw

Hairy Maclary goes for a walk in town and meets a few of his friends along the way. They all have a wonderful time exploring the streets until they suddenly encounter Scarface Claw, the toughest cat in the city, causing all the dogs to run for home. This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. ( January 2023) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) As with pretty much every picturebook, a lot of the story’s success rests upon the facial expressions of the characters — or animals. Scarface Claw stars in a picture book, Scarface Claw, Hold Tight, to be released on 2 October 2017. [3] The whiskers-bristling, high-speed adventure of crotchety Scarface Claw is now available for our youngest fans of Lynley Dodd's Hairy Maclary and Friends

Lynley Dodd is an award-winning author/illustrator who lives in New Zealand. She is enormously popular for her rhyming stories of the unforgettable HAIRY MACLARY and his friends. She worked as a teacher before beginning to write her own books in 1974. Some people are terrified of mirrors, mostly because of superstitions related to reflections and the dead. This fear is called spectrophobia. Books like Hairy Maclary’s Caterwaul Caper and Slinky Malinki Catflaps are literary classics, but has anyone ever ranked every single cat, dog, bird and human in the Hairy Maclary stories in a completely arbitrary way? Which is the strongest and the shaggiest? Whomst is most likely to appear from nowhere with a ladder? It’s hard to believe such a ranking hasn’t happened before, and yet, here we are.

What was your favourite picture book as a child? And besides your own books, what picture books do you enjoy, or give as gifts to children?

New Zealand bloody loves Hairy Maclary. We’ve made films about his life, erected statues in his honour, and turned Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy into the bestselling book of last decade. The prime minister once read a Hairy Maclary book on national television, and we all know a small kid who can’t put their pants on properly but can drop a casual “cacophony” or “skedaddle” into the conversation like a total boss. This is of course all thanks to Dame Lynley Dodd, who writes sweet, simple stories about a mischievous terrier and his gang of doggy mates. Hairy Maclary and Friends is a series of children's picture books created by New Zealand author and illustrator Dame Lynley Dodd. The popular series has sold over five million copies worldwide. [1] Famous for driving through town with Scarface Claw on top of his car. Spoiler, he is not the toughest Tom in town.Hairy Maclary's adventures are usually in the company of his other dog friends who include the Dachshund Schnitzel von Krumm, the Dalmatian Bottomley Potts, the Greyhound Bitzer Maloney, the English Mastiff Hercules Morse and the Old English Sheepdog Muffin McLay. The series also features cats Scarface Claw, their formidable opponent, and Slinky Malinki. A durable board book edition of crotchety Scarface Claw's latest whiskers-bristling adventure by Lynley Dodd Schnitzel von Krumm is the star of several of his own adventures as well as appearing in Hairy Maclary's. A red standard smooth-haired Dachshund, Schnitzel's legs are the shortest in the gang. We can all agree that one fussy budgie is trouble enough, but four? FOUR?! Four fussy budgies could rule the world. Has Hairy ever caused such mayhem? Thank goodness for Miss Plum, who once again steps in to save the day!