Before I was a professional TV critic or a published author, I was a thoroughly amateur unpublished author, writing poems and short stories and collecting them in term-paper-type binders. The concept for Animaletters emerged from this period, and the poems were completed 40 years ago. A talented artist friend, Melinda Copper, eventually provided illustrations, and both the drawings and poems in Animaletters have since been road-tested successfully on generations of children - in my family, anyway. Now, finally, they see print for real. I hope you enjoy them.