The Jaz Hoy author interview Veronica the Clever Cow is now on our YouTube channel — and it answers the question we get asked most often: where did this series come from?
Watch it here: Jaz Hoy author interview — Veronica the Clever Cow on YouTube
Jaz Hoy Author Interview — Veronica the Clever Cow Explained
In this short video, Jaz Hoy talks about the creation of the Veronica series. Where the idea came from. What she wanted to achieve. And why a children’s book about a Swiss Brown cow felt not just possible but necessary.
The answer starts with a real cow and a BBC news story.
A cow in the Austrian Alps did something so deliberate and inventive that it made international news. Jaz read that story and knew immediately — this character deserved a book.
Not because it was a commercial calculation. Because there was something in that cow — that particular kind of patient, persistent, lateral cleverness — that felt like exactly what children needed to encounter.
The Jaz Hoy author interview Veronica the Clever Cow captures that moment of realisation clearly.
Writing for Children — What the Interview Reveals
Writing for young children is both the most challenging and the most rewarding kind of writing there is.
Every word in a picture book has to earn its place. Every sentence has to work on two levels — for the child hearing the story, and for the adult reading it aloud.
The Veronica books went through many drafts before they were right. Not because the stories were complicated. Because getting them simple enough, warm enough, and true enough took real care.
Jaz talks about this in the interview — the drafts, the decisions, and the moment each book felt finished.
About Jaz Hoy
Jaz Hoy is an Australian author based in Brisbane. The Veronica the Clever Cow series is her first children’s book series.
Research from the Australian Literacy Educators Association confirms what Jaz built into the books from the beginning — that clever, character-driven stories with strong female protagonists make a measurable difference to young readers’ engagement and comprehension.
Veronica is not a lucky character. She does not wait for rescue. She is clever as a way of being. And the Jaz Hoy author interview Veronica the Clever Cow explains exactly how that came to be.
The Full Series
Four books are currently available on Amazon, each written for children aged 3 to 7 and designed for reading aloud.
