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• First Book Published:
  1983
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Fast Facts

1. John R. Erickson used to be a real cowboy.
   
   
2. The two books that influenced most when he was a kid was the Bible (King James version) and Mark Twain's TOM SAWYER. Twain used a lot of humor in his work, and was great at capturing the way people speak in the South. Erickson was inspired by these techniques when writing the first Hank book.
   
   
3. The idea for the Hank the Cowdog series came from Erickson's time working as a cowboy on ranches. He thought of two dogs and a cat that he had actually known on one of the ranches, and tried to imagine what they would say in do if they could talk. The result was the Hank, Drover and Pete the Barncat characters.
   
   
4. The character Slim Chance is based on the personalities of Erickson and two cowboy friends of his. The character Sally May is very similar to Erickson's wife and mother, while Little Alfred was inspired by his two sons (Scot and Mark).
   
   
5. Erickson has written another, non-Hank the Cowdog book called MOONSHINER'S GOLD. It's about two brothers and their widowed mother, who live on a ranch during the Prohibition Era (a time in American history when alcohol was illegal). It will be out in September 2001.
   
   

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