Writing stories for children is a new role for Paul McCartney, and he's thrilled with it.

Paul McCartney

"It's always nice to try projects like this," the former Beatle said in a recent telephone interview from Minneapolis, one of 37 stops on his nationwide tour promoting his acclaimed new CD, "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.''

"It's a nice change and a stretch for me and for my fans. It's nice to spread myself out a bit."

McCartney's children's book, "High in the Clouds" (Dutton, $19.99), has just been released, with a first run of 500,000 copies. Illustrated in a glossy animation style by Geoff Dunbar, the 98-page book tells the story of Wirral the Squirrel, whose woodland home is destroyed by money-hungry developers.

Wirral, joined by his friend Froggo and a lovely squirrel named Wilhamina, set out through the nightmarish landscape of Megatropolis to find a new home in Animalia, a tropical island sanctuary for animals.

But finding Animalia isn't enough. Wirral and his friends must convince the island's peace-loving inhabitants to fight the evil Gretsch, who is seeking to destroy Animalia and force all of its inhabitants to become slaves in her pollution-belching factories. Can Wirral and company find a way to save Animalia?

McCartney's fast-paced story crackles with energy. Sure, some

of the characters are stock types, and the story sometimes gets a bit too busy. And some of Dunbar's illustrations seem small and dark.

But the book overall is superior to children's books recently churned out by celebrities like Madonna, Katie Couric and Jay Leno, and there are a couple of good reasons for this.

McCartney knew that, although he is one of the best known and most popular singer/songwriters in the word, he's a beginner when it comes to writing books for children. So he decided to hire a veteran author, Philip Ardagh, author of books like the best-selling "Eddie Dickens'' trilogy, to polish his story.

"I did OK on the story line and characters, and artist Geoff was great with illustrations. But we needed someone to help bring some elegance to the prose," McCartney.

"I'm happy to own up to that," he added. "Some people told me, 'Just put your name on it.' But [Ardagh] gives it a style that we couldn't have brought to it."

'High' expectations for new McCartney book

Perhaps even more important to the success of the book over the usual celebrity tomes is the fact that McCartney didn't set out to bring a "message'' to his young readers.

McCartney, like seasoned children's book authors, focused on telling a rollicking tale. And if readers understand the "kindness to animals" message implicit in the story, so much the better:

"I would like readers first of all to just enjoy the story and illustrations. If they enjoy the stories and sympathize with the characters, then they would be educating themselves about the underlying theme of kindness to animals," McCartney said. "But we really wanted it to be a good read."

He got the idea for "High in the Clouds" years ago, when he and Dunbar worked on the animated film "Tropic Island Hum." The two have collaborated on a number of animation shorts, including the award-winning "Rupert and the Frog Song" in 1985.

"In discovering those characters ... we started to have the idea to do something more full-length with them." Dunbar and McCartney took a mock-up to a book editor, who gave "High in the Clouds" the green light.

McCartney said the book is meant to appeal to "any age, if you're just looking at the pictures. The pictures are beautiful. He told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that his 2-year-old daughter, Beatrice, enjoys the illustrations.

"But, as for reading it, it's a sophisticated tale, a story that's more for children over 8 years old, who are used to that kind of emotional depth. I'd say the story is for anyone from 8 to 80."

Adult readers may question how children will be affected by the death of Wirral's mother, which occurs early in the story. Wirral's grief is highlighted, both in the story and in Dunbar's illustrations.

McCartney said he understands that the death adds a somber note to the story, but points to other popular tales like "Bambi" that also feature a parent's death.

"If I were reading it to a little kid, I'd skip that part," McCartney said. "But I think that, for older kids, often something significant like this happens; it's an emotional thrust of the story that's very important.

"Yes, it is dark, but I think that a lot of good books have things like this to engage your emotions, to draw you in and make you care. And look at Grimms' fairy tales -- now, they're really dark!"

McCartney, a lifelong Disney fan, said he decided on a squirrel for the main character because he wanted an animal, and the other obvious choices already were taken. "It couldn't be a bear because that's been done -- Winnie the Pooh. And it couldn't be a mouse -- we know who that would be."

Wirral, whose full name is actually William the squirrel, is named for "the place where my dad used to live, outside Liverpool," McCartney said. Gretsch started out as Gretchen, but then morphed into the "funky shorthand" of Gretsch, which also happens to be a kind of guitar.

"There are all kinds of little cross-references like that in the book."

Now that he has published one children's book, McCartney said he'd think about doing another. "But I'd really like to see how this experience goes. If this goes well, it would be tempting to do another."

Asked what he thinks he does best -- make music or write children's books -- McCartney laughed and said: "I'll probably stick to my day job."