Years ago, I reluc­tant­ly plant­ed a veg­etable gar­den. I wasn’t espe­cial­ly com­pelled to dig around in the dirt, but my then-first grad­er des­per­ate­ly want­ed to grow veg­gies. So I did what all good moth­ers do, I ini­ti­at­ed a bond­ing, life-enrich­ing expe­ri­ence with my child. Of course, I got stuck doing it all by myself once the kid lost inter­est (which was about two hours into the project).

So there I am plant­i­ng let­tuce, green beans, pump­kins, onions. And strange­ly, I began feel­ing proud about those plants. Every day, I went out to admire my hand­i­work, and gasp at the fact that the darn things actu­al­ly grew a lit­tle taller, and a lit­tle fuller every day.

Then one morning…rabbits!

I built fences. I put up owl stat­ues. I plant­ed marigolds. Noth­ing worked. I slow­ly came to the real­iza­tion that the only place I could beat those pesky puff­tails was in a book.

Ta da! The inspiration.

As for the imag­i­na­tion, I turned myself into an old grump named Mr. McGreely, and I changed those marigolds and owl stat­ues into a moat and a gigan­tic fort com­plete with barbed wire and searchlights.

Ini­tial­ly, I also imag­ined the gar­den­er suc­ceed­ing in his bun­ny-free quest, and I actu­al­ly wrote the first draft that way. You know, the gar­den­er cheers, “I beat the bun­nies,” and then he hap­pi­ly eats the car­rots all by himself.

I liked that ending.

But I knew my read­ers wouldn’t.

Aware of the fact that read­ers of this sto­ry are most like­ly kinder­gart­ners, I knew the bun­nies need­ed to be vic­to­ri­ous. Sym­bol­i­cal­ly they are chil­dren in the sto­ry; chil­dren who must out­wit the grownup.