"I wanted to write a book that shouted, that didn't talk and didn't shout abuse, necessarily, but shouted."
From an interview with Ted Dawe, at the New Zealand Herald:
I told him how much I loved the story My Dog, Your Dog, (on the Christchurch Library's website) which he wrote and Jane illustrated. It has never been published but it should be. It is very sweet and very funny and the pictures are magical and the very last thing you expect a moral polluter to have written. He said: "You've read that! Oh! Cool! You're the only person I've ever met who's read that."
There are no rude words in this little story. I did have to ask about the C word in his book. He told me a very funny story about using the word as a little boy playing Scrabble with his parents and grandmother. There was a terrible silence and finally his grandmother asked if he knew what the word meant. Of course he did. It meant "silly person" and he knew this because he and every other kid at school in Tokoroa called each other the word for silly person: "Every second sentence."