They are always so much fun to read with the little people in my life and the illustrations are always bright, cheerful and fun. When reading it to my son, it was hard to make it interesting and it did not captivate him in the way her books usually do. You have to understand that when I see a new Julia Donaldson picture book, I'm am fully prepared to be blown away by her story. Each individual attempt was met with a surprise act from their neighbor, and the results was complete failure by the baddies. Julia and Axel are the team that have created picture book favourites such as The Gruffalo, Stick Man, Zog and Highway Rat - all of which have been made into animated films premiering on BBC1 Christmas Day.

I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. I was intrigued to see that the Ghost was very much drawn in the style of Jacob Marley from Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'. Join our community to get personalised book suggestions, extracts straight to your inbox, 10% off RRPs, and to change children’s lives. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published.I’d already created a number of villains – among them the Highway Rat and Wizard Lizard, but never more than one in each book. I liked this book - the rhymes and rhythms were almost consistent - a few areas where the scansion didn't work for me. I really enjoy getting the children in the audience to help me act out the stories and sing the songs.

My novel THE GIANTS AND THE JONESES is going to be made into a film by the same team who made the Harry Potter movies, and I have written three books of stories about the anarchic PRINCESS MIRROR-BELLE who appears from the mirror and disrupts the life of an otherwise ordinary eight-year-old. Her other books include Room on the Broom, Stick Man and Zog, illustrated by Axel Scheffler, The Hospital Dog, illustrated by Sara Ogilvie and the hugely successful What the Ladybird Heard adventures, illustrated by Lydia Monks. I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married. Captivating, full of opportunities for giggles and even a story for the bigger children… (yes adults that’s you!I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books. My only question is why are the endpapers purple with white polka dots, when the handkerchief that was the main element in the story was blue with white polka dots? I was very interested to see a ghost on the cover and throughout who bares resemblance with Marley’s Ghost from Dickens’ famous tale - I think it’s amazing that when the young children come across A Christmas Carol (which the majority in England will due to the GCSE spec) they might recognise the ghost after having The Baddies as a staple household item.

Your child will giggle their way through this comic tale of three very bad, silly, and completely hopeless storybook characters who dare each other to steal a hanky-chief from a young girl walking through their woods. The baddies devise different ways to scare her but are unsuccessful as she shows them kindness and understanding.I think her reactions were genuine and she was just doing what felt natural in the moment--which makes it even funnier to me, that she was thwarting them without even trying! One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. The brand-new picture book from superstar author and illustrator Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler is a riot of slapstick fun and silliness. When a little girl moves into a nearby cottage, the Baddies can’t wait to scare her out of her wits. Julia Donaldson has written some of the world's best-loved children's books, including modern classics The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child, which together have sold over 25 million copies worldwide and have been translated into over one hundred languages.

The drawings as ever are full of characterful mischief and children will find much to see in them - a Gruffalo lurking on a page, for example. With Julia Donaldson’s (author of The Gruffalo) trademark quirky humour and rhyming text and Axel Scheffler’s detailed illustrations, there are lots of fun things to spot as you read and reread the text. She was the UK Children’s Laureate 2011–13 and has been honoured with a CBE for Services to Literature. We want a song about throwing crumpled-up wrapping paper into the bin” was a typical request from the BBC.Of course, the little mouse saves the day and rids the woods of our pesky villains, and we all sleep more soundly at night. The witch, troll, and ghost are more silly than scary, making this an ideal Halloween read-aloud for the early elementary grades. But the little girl quickly shows them that you don’t have to be big to be brave, and baddies don’t always win. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes.