Gruffalo Girl Graces Storrington Duck Race!

An interview with Julia Donaldson, the author of the best-selling book 'The Gruffalo'

Today was the annual Storrington Duck Race - a fund-raising event organised by the Friends of Storrington Primary School that draws people from far and wide. Today we were lucky enough to have Julia Donaldson open our event by counting down the first race. She very kindly agreed to be interviewed by me, as she knows I would love to be a journalist one day. Here is what we talked about:

We're really thrilled to have you here at the Storrington Duck Race today. Is this the first time you've been to our Duck Race and are you enjoying it so far?

Yes, it is the first time I've been to a Duck Race and I'm very much enjoying it, especially the archery because I was quite good at that and I managed to beat my husband. I was quite relieved it wasn't real ducks, because I thought I was going to have to hold a real struggling duck and throw it into the water!

Some people might find our Duck Race a little quirky. What's the most quirky or unusual event you've ever been asked to be involved in?

I think this probably is. I've been asked to do a lot of quirky events that I've not been able to do, though once I had to judge a competition on 'Poems about Worms' which was a bit unusual.

You grew up in London and lived in various other places but in the end you decided to make West Sussex your home. What brought you here and what do you like most about living in Sussex?

A long time ago, I used to live in Brighton and I've still got lots of friends from those days, but some of them live in Steyning now. I just wanted to live somewhere smaller as I always used to live in big towns and I just love nature so I wanted to live in a place where you could look at it all the time. I really love it.

When you wrote The Gruffalo did you ever imagine it would be so successful and at the time had you planned for there to be a sequel? 

I had no idea it would be successful. I didn't even think it would get published! I was just thrilled somebody wanted to publish it. I actually wrote the sequel five years later and only because I had a good idea for it. It's harder writing a sequel than an original book.

Is there a reason that so many of your books are written in rhyme?

Yes, it's because I was a song-writer for years and years before I started writing books. My very first book was actually written as a song and then was made into a book many years later. I was just used to writing songs which mostly rhymed.

Many of your books like 'The Gruffalo' and 'Stick Man' are illustrated by Axel Scheffler. How did you both end up working together so much?

The publisher pairs up authors and illustrators together. So if it's a new author, they'd pair them up with a quite well known illustrator. That's why my first book, 'A Squash And A Squeeze', was illustrated by Axel Scheffler as he's very popular in children's books.

Are your illustrator's pictures always what you imagined them to look like? Are you sometimes surprised by them?

I'm often surprised by them. It's a bit like the feeling you get when you're on holiday and you're going somewhere you've never been before. You have a clear image of what you think it's going to look like, and then it's completely different. After a while, you forget what you thought it was going to look like and it doesn't make any sense like that any more. That's what it's like when I see the drawings from the publishers- I get a picture inside my head but then I get used to how the illustrators see it and now I can't imagine any of them any different.

I've started reading 'Running On The Cracks', which I'm really enjoying. It is a book you wrote for older readers. Most of your books are for younger children so what made you want to write a book for an older audience?

That book came about because I had written a lot of plays for schools and I was asked to write one when I had an idea that I could include a paper-boy and while he's delivering his papers he discovers something isn't quite right about one of the houses. In the end, that idea became a story instead of a play. I also had teenage children at the time so I was fairly interested in trying to write something that might appeal to them.

Are you planning to write any more books for older readers or teenagers?

I have written a few other books aimed at an older age group like 'The Giants and The Joneses'. Never say never but at the moment I'm very busy doing all sorts of events like shows and duck races so it's hard to find time as you really have to set aside quite a long period if you want to try writing something longer.

How much longer would it take to write a older children's book than a younger children's one?

The thinking period can be long for both kinds of book. It can sometimes take years to come up with the right sort of plot. The actual writing time for the book 'Running On The Cracks' was about a year to write, whereas for the shorter books, once I get going it takes somewhere between two weeks and a month to write. Though there are lot's of other stages as well - sorting out which words go on which page, looking at the illustrations and editing. So the writing part only takes up a bit of the process.

You have a new book in the pipe-line called 'The Smeds and The Smoos'. I know it's about red and blue aliens falling in love despite their parents' disapproval. Did you have a real-life scenario in mind when you were writing this story?

Not really as it's one of those books I was talking about earlier that takes such a long time to write. I started this book years and years ago and I didn't get very far with the story but I decided to start writing the story again as Axel is really good at drawing aliens. I just thought aliens might appeal to him as he gets sick of drawing pictures of trees and forests all the time so he might enjoy being able to come up with an imaginary planet. He could have a bit of fun.

I would love to be a writer or a journalist when I'm older. What advice would you give to an aspiring young writer?

Well I think you're doing brilliantly already, finding people to interview and thinking of interesting questions. Being a journalist is a little bit different to me, but to be a writer I would say it's important to be a reader, reading everyday!

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