The first Ruby book was so well received that, even before it was published, I was asked to write a second Ruby story.
I wasn’t keen on the idea initially. The first book, which followed Ruby’s life from egg through to motherhood, felt self-contained and I wasn’t comfortable trying to tack a sequel onto the end of it. I was keen to do another book with Rebecca Harry, but suggested a story featuring a new set of characters*.
However Macmillan, my UK publisher, was keen that the second book should feature Ruby. The images of Ruby as a fluffy yellow duckling were particularly appealing and, since I had ruled out a sequel (which might have involved one of Ruby’s children), it was suggested that the new story could be set inside the time frame of the first book, concentrating on when Ruby was a young ducking.
Unfortunately, the first story I came up with was not judged strong enough. One of the difficulties with writing sequels** is that you have to try to recreate the feel of the original story while offering something different. This first plot, about Ruby crossing the lake for the first time, was considered to be too similar to the original story. After this setback it took me the best part of a year before I came up with the first draft of This Way Ruby.
Whereas the first Ruby story is told from the point of view of her parents (with all the dialogue being delivered by either Mother or Father Duck), this second story is firmly centred on Ruby and her siblings as they set off to explore the lake and it’s surroundings.
The first book made it clear that the young Ruby would lag behind her siblings in almost any activity, so the challenge of this story was to present her slowness as a virtue rather than a handicap. As a parent of two children, I’ve often found myself at the back of a group of walkers accompanying a disconsolate toddler who would rather be racing ahead with the older children, but lacked the stamina to do so – so I was already skilled in placing a positive spin on this predicament.
But it’s not just spin – the story suggests that Ruby prefers to take a slower pace so that she can fully take in her new surroundings before moving on – and I think that is a genuine virtue. In the age of the automobile and cheap air travel, it’s all too easy to keep moving on to the next location when we’ve barely come to terms with where we are. I despair of the “box-ticking” type of globe-trotting tourists who visit a different country for each holiday, rarely visiting the same location twice and gathering only the most superficial impressions of the places they have been.
As usual, I went through several drafts of the story with the editor, Emma Harris, before arriving at a finished version. I needed a reason for the ducklings to want to turn back suddenly and head for home and we went through various options, including a snake slithering through the grass, before settling on the thunderstorm.
The thunderstorm prompted the book’s illustrator, Rebecca Harry, to use a darker palette than she has used elsewhere and the resulting spread is my favourite in the book (click here to see this spread). I particularly like the way that the wet ducklings are shown huddling together on the right hand side. Elsewhere, Rebecca's illustrates the book with the same warmth and charm that she brought to the first Ruby story.
* The story that I suggested was Always and Forever, which has since been illustrated by Daniel Howarth and will also be published by Scholastic in the US.
** Technically speaking, this second story is not a sequel, since it does not take place after the first story. The word “prequel” is sometimes used to describe a story that takes place before an existing story, but I’m not aware of a similar phrase to describe a story that runs simultaneously with an existing one – “simquel” perhaps?
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