The reactions to my How To Write A Kids' Book column were amazing, ranging from, "How dare you, my child is not dumb!" to, "Until your column, I'd never noticed that my child was smaller than I am!" to, "Sure, you taught us how to write a story with a chair as the main character, but what about one in which it's an animal?"

So let's get started!

Step 1. Think of an animal. Let's use "rhino". (It doesn't matter which animal, since all animals can be made to look cute, by drawing them in a cardigan.)

Step 2. Think of what the animal's "problem" is. It's best if this relates to some actual trait of the animal. For example, let's say our rhino, "Fred", has a bent horn (aka Bent Horn Syndrome). Let's say Fred's BHS repulses the other animals, who never invite him to their parties. (Here we might have a drawing of Fred contemplating suicide while gazing sadly into a mirror at the horrible, twisted, phallic monstrosity at the end of his snout.)

Step 3. Introduce a character sympathetic to Fred's plight - an elderly rhino, perhaps, whose horn is not bent, just calcium-deprived/droopy. Wait, we may be getting into strange, Viagra-suggestive waters, so let's say Fred has a youthful giraffe friend, "Pierre", born without a neck. I mean his head literally sits right on his shoulders. What a freak. Yikes. No way can he eat fruit off the top of a tree. Unless the tree has fallen down in a storm or something. Anyway, Fred and Pierre run away together to some place known for its openness - southern California, for instance.

Step 4. The community is glad these two freaks have flown the coop.

Step 5. Something befalls the community, something that only Fred and Pierre can solve. This is the hard part. Whatever befalls the community must be solvable by, and only by, a rhino with a bent horn working in close coordination with a neckless giraffe. Also, somehow, Fred and Pierre must be made aware of this in Los Angeles, and be able to get back from LA in time to solve the problem before it kills the other animals.

A tough problem. But I know you can solve it. So could I, if I wanted to. After all, I am a professional. But this is your story. If I give you a fish, and you eat the fish, you get a stomach ache because I did not cook the fish, and also it is rife with mercury. Whereas if I teach you to test for mercury, you could get a good job at, say, Dow Chemical, eat nothing but steak, and never have to write a stupid kids' book and go on a degrading tour and read night after night to a crowd of tiny ingrates rolling around on the floor while picking their noses and digging at their rears, whining that they want to go home.

Now: begin writing.