Hank and Fergus

Fergus is invisible, but the string that Hank uses as his leash is not. Cooper, the new boy next door, sees only the string, not the dog. He also sees the large birthmark on Hank''s face. Thus begins a war between the two boys, a struggle that threatens to dissolve all hope for the friendship they both crave. The climax comes when Cooper grabs the string and tries to pull it from Hank''s iron grip, snapping it in two. What follows brings the boys together without threatening Fergus''s existence. In fact, Fergus ends up with a friend of his very own.

Hank and Fergus is Susin Nielsen-Fernlund''s first picture book, but she has been writing for many years. She started out as a cook, feeding the cast and crew on the series, "Degrassi Junior High." The job did not suit. The young stars of the series wrote, "An Ode to Susin, the Bran Muffin Queen. We eat them, we die, then we turn green." She was a better writer, though, and ended up writing sixteen episodes and four books for the series. She now writes full time for Canadian children''s television. She lives with her husband, Goran, their son, Oskar, their cat, Sam, and Oskar''s imaginary dog, Spoofus.

Louise-Andrée Laliberté is a well-known illustrator in Quebec, but Hank and Fergus is her first English book. She was drawn to the light, delicate and intelligent way in which Susin wrote about a serious subject. And she knows dogs. Her dog, Mika, weighs one hundred pounds and is so hairy that you can''t tell which end is the head and which is the tail! "I know kids quite well," Louise says. "I know dogs quite well. Once, when I was a kid, my best friend was a dog."