Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I'm Julia Donaldson
and here sitting next to me is my most famous creation the Gruffalo
I'm the author of the book called The Gruffalo
actually i sometimes get fed up when the Gruffalo tries to
take over because i have written a lot
of other books, I've written very many picture books in rhyme
for young children
and i also write
novels for older children,
and I've written a lot of songs, I've written plays
and i've just finished writing a teenage novel. When i was five years old, my father
gave me a big
fat book for my birthday. I've still got it here.
It says 'with love to Julia on her fifth birthday'
It's called The Book of a Thousand Poems
and I learned lots of these poems by heart, I absolutely love them
I used to go around reciting them and I started writing
little poems of my own
and at that stage when I was five
I did want to be
a poet!
I often get ideas for books when I'm walking along or when I'm doing the washing up
or very often when I'm in the bath
not really when i'm sitting at my desk.
But often I write the book in my head
and when i'm really sure what the story's going to be
I get a big fat book
this is actually the book I wrote The Gruffalo in
I just brainstorm, I write everything that comes into my head that could go
into this story.
This is when I was trying to decide what the Gruffalo would look like
I've written
Toes, nose
Horns, thorns
Spots, stripes
Eyes, feet
Tail, pale
Looking for rhymes for the Gruffalo's appearance
When I was a little girl and I'd learned to read I taught my sister how to read
and I've always been interested in how children learn to read
and recently I've written 46
phonic reading books which are called Songbirds.
They are teaching children to read by the quite old-fashioned method where you
learn the letter sounds and the spelling patterns.
They start off very simply, with a book about
Bob Bug
Almost all the words are very short and simple
Poor Bob thinks he sees a big
bad rat in the night and it's just really a shadow in his room and it ends up
'Bob Bug has a hug'
So although it's quite a simple, easy to read story, I think children will be able to identify
with it, children who have night-time fears.
I think Scottish Book Trust is absolutely brilliant
they do all sorts of things, but the thing that means the most to me is the author visits.
They help pay for school's and libraries to get authors in
and this is very beneficial to the kids
And it's lovely for the authors.
I love visiting schools especially when the children are well-prepared
and they've read your books and are quite excited to meet you
I went to a lovely school in Wick in the very north of Scotland and the children
put on a show in the town hall. I visited that school for a week, and they made
lots of wonderful props.
This is a fish
called Tiddler
and they acted out my story called Tiddler. They all had fish on sticks!
They got such a lot out of it and were so enthusiastic. It's a lovely feeling.
You go away with quite a glow when you go to a school like that.