One of the most exciting things for any author is to see his or her creation come to life in the minds of the readers. I have had Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome in my imagination for over forty years! I have written about him in seven books now and have many new adventures planned for him. But it is when I see what my young readers think of him that he really comes to life for me. Ms. Storey's Talented and Gifted third and fourth graders gave me several versions of how they see Wullie in his petrified form and in his "alive" form. Here are a few of those:
There are also some great pictures of Wullie jumping off high shelves and bookcases onto piles of dirty laundry in Finn's bedroom. Here are two of my favorites:
One of the kids also did a great job of making a comic strip with lots of scenes from the book in one picture. In this you can see Wullie in Finn's bedroom on a bookcase, on the window sill of his bedroom, being washed in the boys bathroom at the Magnolia Academy of Arts and Sciences and also sitting on Finn's shoulder as Finn and Hadley walk to school:
One of my absolute favorite pictures from Ms. Storey's class is one that shows Wullie sitting outside Finn's bedroom window as he is described at the end of Chapter 5 on page 36 of The Rusty Pelican, smoking his smelly pipe of cowdie and looking out at the waters of Elliott Bay by the night sky.
So as Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome looked out over Elliott Bay from a high window ledge in Magnolia Finnley James Murray McDougall lay back on his pillow and fought back waves of sleepiness. The tiny man was silhouetted by the moon, the smoke from his pipe curling up into the night sky. This had been the strangest day in Finn's young life. It was like a dream. He just hoped it wouldn't all be gone in the morning.
