Important topic covered in Pete Robbins’ children’s book

Pete Robbins with his book. Photo / Grace Odlum

A Waikanae author’s latest children’s book centres around helping animals.

Pete Robbins’ book Some Adventures of Poppy Doodle Dog and the Friends She Meets centres around Mrs Moonbeam, who is an eco-farmer, and her two dogs Poppy and Cooper, who were based on Pete’s real dogs which have the same names.

The book is made up of nine short stories in which Mrs Moonbeam and the dogs meet and look after various animals, including Woody the white rat, Pedro the flightless parrot, Big Mac the circus horse and many others.

Pete’s book explores the issue of animal cruelty, with a lot of the animals Mrs Moonbeam rescues having been neglected in some form, and educates children in a fun way.

Pete, who has been writing books for a long time, said the inspiration for the book came to him one day when he was playing golf and he discovered a white rabbit in one of the holes.

He then rescued the rabbit from the golf course and took it home for his granddaughter.

It’s similar to the first story in the book, where Mrs Moonbeam comes across a rat in a hole at the golf course and saves it.

“Funnily enough, my granddaughter also had a parrot, but he could fly,” Pete said.

Pete said he likes all his stories to have happy endings and said he had even considered making the book into a cartoon.

'Some Adventures of Poppy Doodle Dog and the Friends She Meets', by Pete Robbins.

The book was illustrated by South African artist Doug Hughes, who Pete met through his neighbour, Doug’s son.

Doug based his designs off pictures he was sent of Pete’s real dogs, Poppy and Cooper, who were schnauzers.

“Cooper was an interesting dog,” Pete said.

“He was meant to be a miniature schnauzer but grew to be full size.”

Both Poppy and Cooper passed away after the book was created, but live on through Pete’s work.

Pete is still an avid writer today, and is a part of a Kāpiti writing club.

He said he doesn’t stick to just one genre, and likes to write whatever pops into his mind.

Some Adventures of Poppy Doodle Dog and the Friends She Meets is available for purchase from The Bookshelf in Waikanae, and Pete hopes it will soon be available from Paper Plus too.

Rather than buying the whole book with all nine stories, you will soon have the option to buy individual stories too.