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The concept of Matilda Had a Little Lamb was born while on a family holiday in Byron Bay. I had a life changing epiphany after reading Mathieu Ricard’s “A Plea for The Animals”, where he eloquently pleads that… “Every cow just wants to be happy. Every chicken just wants to be free. Every bear, dog or mouse, experiences sorrow and feels pain as intensely as any of us humans do.” He also mentioned a study by Alina Pavlakos, that showed most 5-year-olds did not know where the meat they ate came from. And when asked, “Do you eat animals?” the majority of them emphatically replied, “No!” as though they were shocked by the very idea. This was the case even in my own family.

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Memories of my childhood on a farm came flooding back as I remembered all the animals we had as pets, plus all the creatures that were part of everyday life on the farm. After reading just a few chapters, I was inspired to change my eating habits and to write a children’s book as to why we should not eat animals. I believe we have a responsibility to tell children the truth.

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Initially, I wanted to be evangelistic about vegetarianism and had the working title, Matilda Had a Little Lamb Until Her Family Ate It, which is what happened on the farm. Then common sense got the better of me. With over 25 years’ experience as a publisher and 11 years tutoring children, I knew it was important to create a story that was educational and at the same time non-confronting. It had to relay a message that the world would be a better place if we were all more aware of what we ate. My own childhood gave me the concept for my story.

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Matilda Had a Little Lamb is a gentle story set on a farm in the Aussie bush. Matilda rescues a little lamb caught in blackberry prickles and nurses it back to good health. With the help of her dad Ned, they name him Banjo. They become besties and are soon inseparable, exploring and playing in the bush.

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On the day of her 11th birthday party, Matilda is horrified to find Banjo has gone missing. As her dad Ned preps the barbeque, he assures Matilda that Banjo has probably gone back to his flock. Matilda thinks the worst. What has her father done? Fortunately, there is a happy ending. After everyone has gone home, Ned tells Matilda that after seeing the special relationship between her and Banjo, he has learnt a valuable lesson. They will no longer eat animals.

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My next challenge was to find an illustrator whose images would make Matilda and Banjo come alive. A chance meeting with an old friend, Michelle March, answered my prayers. Both children and adults are captivated by Michelle’s naïve style.

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From bassinet to teenage years, young children’s lives are full of cute and cuddly, fluffy animals in toys, books, games, or movies. It is a multi-billion-dollar business. Most young lives are full of a menagerie of soft and cuddly baby farm animals. According to professor of psychology William Crain, research has shown that animals are so important to young children that they routinely dream about them. In fact, 3-5 year olds dream more frequently about animals than about people or any other topic, and animal dreams continue to be prominent at least until the age of 7 years.

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A major paradox occurs when many of these cute and cuddly animals that play such an important role in a child’s developing years are served up on their dinner plate. It’s clever marketing in both instances.

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In the early 50s, when I was two, my family rented a ramshackle farmhouse in Glen Waverley, on the outskirts of Melbourne. My ten years on the farm were the happiest days of my life. It was as if my very own storybook had come to life. There were dams to explore, trees to climb, but best of all, I was surrounded by all the farm animals you could ever imagine. My world was filled with chickens, geese, pigs, goats, cows, sheep, rabbits, ducks, pigeons, turkeys and the usual cats, dogs, and a budgie. And then there were the bush animals, snakes, frogs, lizards, cockatoos, rosellas, eagles, and finches which added much to the excitement of the day. It was a bit like Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals, one of my favourite books, except we lived in Oz, rather than the island of Corfu.

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As often happens, many of the farm animals became our family pets; it was always the sick and injured ones who we rescued and nurtured back to health. They became part of our extended family and openly sought attention and affection. Julie the goose, would follow me everywhere and cackle as soon as a stranger tried to enter our yard. Patty and Gertie, the chooks, loved to be cuddled, Panda the goat would jump on mum’s back as she bent down to gather washing to hang on the line and Baarney the lamb would roll onto his back to get his tummy tickled. There were the normal farm animals in the paddocks and sheds and then all our farm pets. It was always a sad day when the big trucks came in to take some of the farm animals away. It was if they knew what lay ahead of them.

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Confusingly, over the years, many of our loved pets disappeared. Dad’s response was always that they must have returned to their families. But one Christmas lunch I noticed that the roast chicken seemed much larger than usual. Then the penny dropped. I had not seen my 4-month-old pet gosling Huey for a few days. I asked dad if this was Huey on the Christmas table. He hesitated as he carved up the “extra-large” chicken. Many tears followed and I remember eating just a plate of roast veggies for lunch that Christmas. The realisation that many of the family pets had in fact not returned to their families but had ended up in the cooking pot was devastating.

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Matilda Had a Little Lamb is a happy story helping to explain to children that they do have a choice as to whether they eat animals or not. They can handle the truth.

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Thank you

Glenn Nicholson

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Future stories in the pipeline are Yoshi Had a Little Whale, Santiago Had a Little Bull, and Canaani Had a Big, Big Elephant.

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