''I've had letters from children who say that their cat too pinches things off the Christmas tree and chases the tinsel all over the place. Even now she'll try and find it when the tree is up. ''She always looked for and found the little decoration, which is a mouse with a hat. And if you've got cats and dogs they can be a bit more intelligent and resourceful in what they do.''įor example, Suu Kyi's early-morning routine led to Slinky Malinki, Early Bird, and her obsession with a particular Christmas decoration inspired Slinky Malinki's Christmas Crackers, Dodd says. ''Animals generally, even if they're fairly mundane ones, can provide you with very good ideas. I'll do that.''ĭodd has written four more Slinky Malinki stories since, with most ideas coming from things that happened either with Wooskit or her current cat, Suu Kyi. I sort of put two and two together really and thought, that's a jolly good story for Slinky Malinki. ''When I started seeing newspaper articles about the huge number of cats who steal things. I was very embarrassed, as you can imagine. And Wooskit got in the door and ate all the meat. '' had come to have a cup of tea in the afternoon and she'd left the car window open and the meat in a packet on the seat. Wooskit also provided the idea of a thieving cat, she says. I think it's because of that connection that I like Slinky so much.'' '' was a gorgeous cat and a much-loved member of the household for 13 years. ''Slinky's very real, because he really was our original cat,'' Dodd says. Slinky Malinki, published in 1990, follows ''the stalking and lurking adventurous cat'' as he goes on an impressive night-time stealing spree, collecting - among other things - ''slippers and sausages, biscuits, balloons, brushes and bandages, pencils and spoons''. He just demanded to have a book and so he did.'' ''And then, of course, he popped into Scattercat and once I'd gotten him in there he became Slinky Malinki. ''A black cat turned up a lot in my earliest books, based on this crazy black cat of ours,'' Dodd says. Lynley DoddWhat do you do with a cat who keeps popping up in your stories? Give him his own book of course, says author and illustrator Dame Lynley Dodd.

Slinky malinki book collection