Bill Wallace Books In Order

Publication Order of Bub Moose Books

Publication Order of Gray Cat Books

Publication Order of Upchuck and the Rotten Willy Books

Publication Order of Standalone Children's Novels

About Bill Wallace:

Bill Wallace was born on August 01, 1947 and died on January 30, 2012.He is a former teacher and an American author of children themed books who is best known for one of the 1992 bestselling book, A Dog called Kitty. He started as a teacher of elementary students who later on encouraged him to be a writer. He used animals as key roles and a main character in his stories. Most of his stories offer the kind of adventure and comedy for young audiences.

Wallace was born and grew up in Chickasha, Oklahoma. His passion for writing drove him to study professional writing at the University of Oklahoma. He also got Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education at The University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma in 1971 and later on he pursued Master’s Degree in Elementary Administration from SWSU in 1974.

He started to apply his knowledge in teaching in 1971. He became a Physical Education teacher at the same time a principal at the year of 1977 up to 1978 at West Elementary in Chickasha. He was also a speaker at schools and universities such as State University of New York and University of South Florida. The school was later on named The Bill Wallace Early Education Centre. Wallace left his job at the school to pursue his career of being a full time writer. He had written a total of 31 books during his lifetime and seven of those are dedicated to his wife Carol.

He didn’t have a hard time writing his books because of his passion and knowledge in writing. However, it is hard for him to capture a good audience at first because most of his books are good for children. Most adult readers say that his stories are tragic and not suitable for younger audiences because it might after the way they think. Ironically, a child appreciates his stories rather than adults because of his style in writing and by using animals as main character. Wallace used to combine a person and animal relationship to portray his messages in his stories. His writings feature many subjects in life like death, humour, tragedies, relationship and character development. He also wrote a book that has historical facts in it. The first book he had written was A Dog Called Kitty on 1980 which was published in 1992. The last book he wrote was The Dog Who Thought He Was Santa in 2009.

His Inspiration

What drove Him into writing were those children that he is handling during his time of teaching in elementary school. Most of the time he would be reading stories to them until he runs out. Then they will ask him to make up some for the sake of storytelling. These made up stories got him into writing books. His first audience was his students. After reading to them his manuscripts, his students would request if they could read it too personally. It took almost ten years for a company in New York to publish one of his stories. The publisher is named as Holiday House.

A Dog Called Kitty

The first novel that Wallace wrote has an ironic title of A Dog called Kitty. The story started on Ricky, who has a cynophobia (fear of dogs), who later adopted a stray dog that was beaten up by a group of cats in his family’s farm yard. Ricky was attacked by a dog when He was still young. The dogs that attacked him have rabies in which he had to undergo a series of painful injections and stitches. He started to tease and mocks the dog by calling him “Kitty”, but later he became fond of his new pet which overcomes his fear of them. They were later on attacked by some wild dogs and manage to defend themselves as a team. Their story ends when Kitty died on an accident when it goes under the pipes that are being unloaded by a truck. The story of this book focuses on the ups and downs of life. Overcoming trials and hardships and creating a memory through it. Wallace is emphasizing that life is an adventure of good and bad memories with the person you love. There are other book that has Death as its main theme like Beauty and the Christmas Spurs.

The Meanest Hound Around

Wallace also had collaboration in 2003 entitled “The meanest Hound Around”. It tells about a house dog named Freddy, who has a mindset of being of homeless and fatherless when he was abandoned in the woods. Freddy never learned how to fit in a society of junkyard where he hopes to find his own shelter and thus his story begins. This story has a theme of friendship. Freddy’s journey to find his new home ended up on meeting a new friends and later become his own family. Wallace is giving an importance to the relationships that will come and go before us by using hounds and dogs to portray character. This story is best suitable for toddlers or elementary readers.

None of Wallace’ stories were adapted into film or a TV show but he indeed won a couple of award. Wallace has been a trademark and an exceptional writer during the mid 80s up all the way to 2006.His first award was in 1983 in which he receive The Oklahoma Sequoya Children’s Book Award for his the book (A Dog Called Kitty) and also Texas Bluebonnet Award at the same year with the same book. He received a total of 23 awards during his lifetime. The last award that he received was in 2006, The Wyoming Indian Paintbrush Book Award for his book (No Dogs Allowed). His work may not be shown on a screen but still have made an impact to those who read his book. His books are still available and being widely read by children. To some adults who’ve read his book while they were young says that Wallace really made them appreciate life more. By learning on Wallace’ moral lesson, they became ready to accept things that are happening around them. This proves that Wallace really is a great author, one of the legends in book writing for children.