Dori Hillestad Butler is the co-author, with Sunshine Bacon, of the new middle grade novel Rabbit Rabbit. Butler's many other books include the King & Kayla series. She lives in the Seattle area.
Q: What inspired you and Sunshine Bacon to write Rabbit Rabbit, and how did you collaborate on the novel?
A: It wasn’t long after Sunshine and I first met that we started talking about collaborating on a novel. We tried out a couple of other ideas before Rabbit Rabbit; this was the one that stuck.
I guess it was the pandemic that inspired it. I was out walking and thinking about an email exchange I’d had with someone I’d grown up with. This was early March 2020, right before everything shut down.
I was shocked that she and several other people I’d grown up with weren’t anywhere near as worried about Covid as I was. But I was in Kirkland, Washington, where the first case was recorded. The people I was talking to were in rural southern Minnesota.
I started thinking about how interesting it might be to write a book about the pandemic from the point of view of one character in the Seattle area and another in rural Minnesota.
But I don’t have any writer friends in rural Minnesota, so who would write this book with me? Who would write the rural Minnesota character?
Once I wrapped my head around the idea that I could write the rural Minnesota character, I had lots of possibilities for who might write the Seattle character. Sunshine was my first choice for a writing partner and I’m so grateful she said yes!
We wrote our first draft during the summer of 2020. We wrote it in real time together on a shared Google doc. Every morning, we “met” on the doc to work for a couple of hours. That first draft was told entirely in text message, which made it easy to write in real time.
Once we switched to a more narrative structure, we alternated chapters (still in Google docs!) and left suggested edits and comments for each other. We agreed that our friendship came first, the story came second (we would always do what was best for the story!), and we checked our egos at the door.
While we both made a lot of suggested edits to each other’s work, we also agreed that ultimately, we each owned our own character. So if we could not come to an agreement on a suggestion (which didn’t happen often), whoever’s character was narrating that chapter got the final word.
Q: How did you create your characters Alice and Bee?
A: I think there’s a lot of me in Bee and a lot of Sunshine in Alice. But Sunshine says there’s a lot of me in Alice, too. That was interesting for me to hear. In fact, I was happy to hear it because I would like to be a little more Alice.
Bee was definitely influenced by Sunshine, but I don’t see as much of Sunshine in Bee as she sees of me in Alice. That may be just me?
As we got into this story, it became about a lot more than the pandemic. I can’t speak for Sunshine, but I worked out a lot of my own 12-year-old issues in this book. A lot of the things Bee thinks about and worries about are things I thought about and worried about at her age.
Bee’s family is not my family, but she’s living in basically the same town I lived in, dealing with a lot of the same issues. I’m a little reluctant to come right out and say it, but yes, I think she’s basically me. That’s how I created her. You’d have to ask Sunshine how she created Alice.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: Rabbit rabbit is a tradition Sunshine taught me. Text two rabbit emojis to someone you care about on the first of every month. First one to do it “wins.” For the record, Sunshine usually wins. But not always!
While I’d never heard of rabbit rabbit until I met Sunshine, Bee will tell you that it’s a superstition that’s been around for more than a hundred years. It even appeared in a Trixie Belden novel in 1962.
I think of it as an excuse to reach out and say hello to someone you maybe haven’t talked to in a while. It’s a conversation starter. Bee thinks so, too. And if you read the book, I think you’ll agree it’s the perfect title for this particular story.
Q: The Kirkus Review of the book called it “[r]elatable, age-appropriate, and more important now than ever.” What do you think of that description?
A: We’re pleased with that description. We delve into some difficult and mature themes in Rabbit Rabbit. I know there are people who will think some of our topics are “too mature” for our audience. But Sunshine and I are not people who shy away from difficult subjects.
We both talk openly and honestly with our kids and our readers. If you don’t talk to kids about difficult subjects, that doesn’t mean they’re not thinking about those subjects. They know what’s going on in the world, and I think we do kids a huge disservice to assume anything else.
“It’s more important now than ever” to talk to your kids. Thank you, Kirkus, for “getting” what we set out to do here.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on two brand new chapter book series. One is a spin-off to my King & Kayla series and is set at a doggy daycare. The other involves teleportation. They’re both very different from Rabbit Rabbit.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: The book comes out April 15!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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