Goodreads asked David Neilsen:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

David Neilsen Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom was inspired by a drawing by renown children's illustrator Trina Schart Hyman. She drew the picture back in the 1980s as part of a charity event when several top children's illustrators of the day were asked to draw one panel from their favorite fable or fairy tale. My one-day Mother-In-Law bought it and a bunch of other prints in the series and they'd been hanging on her wall for years. I'd probably walked past the picture a hundred times before actually looking at it. As soon as I looked, I was hooked. We looked up Dr. Fell, discovered Tom Brown's rhyme, and I had my story.

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