When was julia donaldson married

The Gruffalo's child is small and brave so goes an adventure to find the infamous Big Bad Mouse. From the creators of Gruffalo, comes Gruffalo's ch We loved this book, our little 3 month old eyes light up when we move the felt flaps to see who's hiding on each page.

The felt flaps make it easier f Oxford Reading Tree Songbirds Phonics. What the Ladybird Heard Lift-the-Flaps. Oxford reading tree: songbirds phonics activity book. This website uses cookies.

By using this website you agree with our cookie policy which you can review or amend at any time. Accept Cookies. Julia Donaldson 5 stars across books. Born in London in , she grew up with her younger sister Mary who she loved to create imaginary characters with.

One of these songs, A Squash and a Squeeze , was made into her first book in in collaboration with the illustrator, Axel Scheffler.

The two have since gone on to produce a large number of bestselling picture books together, many of which have also been adapted into Julia Donaldson films on the BBC, such as The Highway Rat , Stick Man and The Gruffalo. The Gruffalo story is a particular favourite with children all over the world, with toys, activity books and even woodland trails featuring the Gruffalo characters.

Julia has also worked with other famous illustrators including Lydia Monks and Nick Sharratt. She has written over books, including the Julia Donaldson Songbirds readers that are part of the Oxford Reading Tree , which is used in schools.

I grew up in London, in a tall Victorian terraced house. My granny lived at the top and my uncle and aunt were on the middle floor. My parents, younger sister Mary and I shared the ground floor with our cat Geoffrey. He was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him. Here is a picture of Mary and me dressed up as a bucket and spade for a fancy dress competition, and one of Granny and me sitting on the wall outside our house. Granny used to slit open big brown envelopes so that Mary and I could draw and write stories on the back of them.

I liked writing stories at school too; the first one I remember writing was about a rabbit with orange ears that looked like carrots. Mary and I never had any rabbits when we were growing up but we did have other cats and lots of kittens! There I met Malcolm, a medical student who played the guitar.

In our holidays we often used to go busking together. I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta. Malcolm and I have now been married for nearly fifty years! When two of the fairies fell ill, I got to go on as Cobweb and Moth! Instead, student busking led to a career in songwriting for television. Eventually one of my songs became a book; the books then led to author visits; the author visits became more and more theatrical, and filled up most of my diary, so that I spent more time performing than writing.

Last week, I should have been visiting a school, putting on two shows at a book festival, and singing The Snail and the Whale song in the Royal Albert Hall with the London Philharmonic! Never mind — lots of extra time to write! What was it to be? A rhyming picture book?

A novel? A musical? Early on during the lockdown I had the idea of doing a weekly storytelling broadcast. Knowing nothing about social media, I asked my publishers to help, and they have been masterminding the programmes and putting them out under the title Julia Donaldson and Friends. He sometimes complains that his characters are always bad or stupid or both.

The other friends are mostly my illustrators. In each broadcast, one of them does a drawing, which I find mesmerising. How can they do it so quickly, with so few strokes, and make it look so easy?