POODLES is my jinxed book. After the success of Do Penguins Have Knees? in hardbound, my publisher set my biggest printing yet for Poodles. But I knew we were in trouble the first day of my publicity tour for this book. When I do signings, perhaps 50-60% of books are signed to males.

At this event, I noticed that I was signing very few POODLES for men. Would men really be reluctant to buy a book just because "poodles" was in the title and some images of poodles appeared on the cover? In a word: Yep.

We'll stick with penguins from now on. The book is perfectly fine, though -- honest! It includes such mysteries as: Why don't you ever see a LIVE cornish game hen? Why do dogs eat standing up and cats sitting down? And what do they do with the caffeine left over when they decaffeinate coffee?