Every children’s book character starts somewhere. Paddington started with a toy bear on a station platform. Spot the dog started with a father wanting to draw something simple for his toddler. Maverick started at our dinner table, with the same sentence repeated for about a year.
“We should write a book about him.”
Maverick is our cockapoo. He is energetic, endlessly curious, and has the kind of personality that fills a room — or in his case, a story. The idea of turning him into a children’s book character had been sitting between us for a long time before we finally did something about it. Here is how that actually happened.
“Maverick does not sit still for long. Which, it turns out, makes him a perfect children’s book character.”
Who Is Maverick?
Maverick is a cockapoo — a cocker spaniel and poodle cross — and if you know the breed, you already have a good sense of the energy level. He is curious about everything. He investigates corners. He disappears into gardens. He turns up somewhere unexpected about thirty seconds after you last saw him.
It is that last quality — the disappearing — that became the heart of the first book. Where Is Maverick? was not a title we invented. It is a sentence we say in real life, regularly, in a slightly exasperated but completely loving tone.
What Makes Him a Character
Every walk is an investigation. Every room is an adventure waiting to happen.
The original inspiration for the book. Where Is Maverick is a real question in our house.
Whatever mischief he is in, it is impossible to be cross at him for long. Children understand this perfectly.
He is not a fictional dog. He exists. Children who follow his Instagram see the real Maverick every day.
Where the Idea Came From
The dinner table conversation went around in circles for a while. We talked about it. We said we should do it. We talked about it again. The barrier was not creativity — the character was already there, fully formed, living in our house. The barrier was the gap between “we should” and “we are.”
What eventually pushed us over the line was a simple question: what is the story? Not “should we write a book about Maverick” but “what happens in it?”
The answer came almost immediately. He disappears, and someone has to find him. Simple, relatable, and true to who he actually is. A story that every parent who has ever owned a dog — or lost a child in a supermarket for thirty terrifying seconds — would recognise immediately.
How the Book Came Together
We kept it simple and age-appropriate for 2 to 6 year olds. Short sentences, clear narrative, an ending that satisfies. Maverick goes missing. Maverick gets found. Everyone is happy.
We used digital illustration tools to bring Maverick to life on the page — capturing his personality, his colouring and that distinctive cockapoo energy in a style young children respond to.
We chose Amazon KDP for its straightforward process and global reach. No upfront printing costs, available to readers worldwide from day one.
The book was never going to be the whole story. We wanted Maverick to have a life beyond the pages — which is why the Instagram, the website and the community all grew alongside it.
Why a Real Dog Changes Everything
There are thousands of children’s books about dogs. What makes Maverick's Adventures different is that Maverick is real. He has a real Instagram account where children and parents follow his actual daily adventures. He has a real personality that shines through every post.
When a child reads Where Is Maverick and then sees him on their parent’s phone — the same dog, same curls, same expression — the connection is immediate and genuine. The book stops being a story and starts being a window into someone’s real life. That authenticity is something no fictional character can replicate.
The response from the first readers has been everything we hoped for. Three reviews on Amazon in the first few weeks, all from real families who read it with their little ones.
That is what all of this is for. Not the numbers — the moment a child asks to read it again.
What Comes Next for Maverick
Where Is Maverick is the first book in the Maverick's Adventures series — and it was always designed to be the beginning, not the whole story. Book 2 is already in development, and we are working on a colouring and activity book alongside it.
The adventures are going to keep coming. Because Maverick, being Maverick, is never short of them.
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