Julia Donaldson tells Louise Flind about songwriting, dealing with deafness and the Chinese folk story that inspired her beloved monster. Her new book, The Gruffalo Granny, is out now
What were your favourite books when you were a child?
I loved the Just William books, and Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, because of the three sisters.
Did you write as a child?
I’ve got a book of poems I wrote when I was six about the snow, the spring and nature, with little illustrations.
Did you initially find it easier to write for music?
Professionally, I wrote songs before I wrote books, and in a way it’s easier because a song doesn’t have to have a plot. I once was commissioned to write a song about horrible smells. So long as you have three verses, a chorus about horrible stuff and just make sure the funniest verse is at the end, there’s not too much structuring.
What was your first big break?
When my song ‘A Squash and a Squeeze’, which I wrote for children’s television in my twenties, was made into a book when I was about 40.
Do you prefer writing children’s books or plays?
I think my forte is writing in verse.
How do you get into a child’s mind?
I’m not trying to get into a child’s mind. Maybe I haven’t forgotten what it was like to be a child.
Where do your ideas come from?
From a traditional tale, or from travel experience, or memories of my childhood – or they could just be a brainstorming process. I could think, I want a book about a villain – as I’ve done in Highwaymen. And I think, ‘What could the villain be?’ Sometimes it’s quite cerebral.
Where did the ideas come from for The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom?
The Gruffalo is loosely based on a Chinese folk story about a fox.
For Room on the Broom, I thought, ‘What if a witch, instead of having a cat on a broomstick, had some other animals?’
It does rather resemble the musicians of Bremen, where these four animals scare away some robbers by climbing on each other’s backs. So there’s an element of traditional tales.
What ingredients do children love – horrible parents, danger, comfort?
You can’t really generalise. Talking about Room on the Broom, it’s true that some children are a bit scared of the dragon.
But I met one parent who said, ‘My child’s fine about the dragon, but is terribly scared of the wind.’
I think a good story usually has someone who’s out of their comfort zone, confronted by problems – something scary – and they have to rely on their wits to overcome that.
What book are you most proud of?
My teenage novel, Running on the Cracks, which was very challenging to write, and The Bowerbird, inspired by a David Attenborough programme.
What gave you most pleasure when you were the children’s Laureate?
Watching children act out stories, because I’m very keen on performance.
How did you cope with partially losing your hearing when you were in your 30s?
Getting good hearing aids. Deafness was a gradual thing.
What are your earliest childhood holiday memories?
I grew up in London and every year we went to this village in Wiltshire called Grittleton to stay in Grittleton House, a girls’ boarding school. In the summer, it became a school of music, and my father played the cello – he was an amateur cellist. It was just magic being in the countryside and in this house, which had secret passageways and cellars. And we used to go riding there.
Where did you go on your honeymoon?
We went to Corfu – it was on a package deal, not leaving till Tuesday. So we spent the first two nights in a timbered inn in East Grinstead, fungus-hunting.
What’s the strangest place you’ve ever slept in while being away?
A really strange hotel in London. Luckily, the publisher was paying. It was a suite of rooms with 18 steps up to the loo and a wooden throne.
To turn on the bath, you had to move a brass lizard, and the water came out of an eagle’s mouth. The bath was in the sitting room and the television came out from behind the mirror.
What are your biggest headaches?
Airports. I hate the way they make you walk through all these perfumes and alcohol. I like the actual flying, sitting in the window seat.
What are your travelling tips?
For an Airbnb, it’s quite a good idea to bring some kitchen gadgets – cheese-grater, garlic press – and I bring lots of tea bags.
What’s your favourite food?
When I was a child, I loved roast potatoes so much that on my birthday I had to have that number of roast potatoes and that went on till I was 14.
