The egocentric Mathew J. “Wordy” Birdy was to appear in the first edition of “Ziggy Wants to Know… Where’s Chippy?” but his scene was deleted from the book to keep the total number of story pages to 32 (rule of thumb for a picture book).
It also seemed to suit the story to have Ziggy encounter only positive and supportive characters during his search for the missing Chippy.
I had originally envisioned the wordy birdy as a cautionary character to be avoided.
But now (ten years after I thought him up and then “shelved him”), I think Mathew will work much better as someone who means well and genuinely wants to help but comes on a bit too strong by talking a blue streak!.
This being the case, the other characters do not recognize the wordy birdy’s value (until the end of the story).
Illustrator Dinnie is currently working on Mathew’s first appearance in the “Chippy Gets Scammed” book.
If you would like to help support this project…
