Julia Donaldson

Julia Donaldson grew up in London. Her grandmother used to slit open big brown envelopes so that she could draw and write stories on the back of them. She liked writing stories at school too.

She went to Bristol University to study Drama and French. She would write special songs for each country she visited; the best one was in Italian about pasta.

Julia worked for a couple of publishers and at a local radio station, and then taught English in a secondary school. During that time, she was also singing in folk clubs with Malcolm, her husband.

She sent a tape of her songs to the BBC, and they asked her to write some more songs for children’s television. They usually told her what to write about – it might be guinea pigs, window-cleaning or horrible smells!

In 1993 the words of one of her television songs, A Squash and a Squeeze, were made into a book, with wonderful pictures by Axel Scheffler.

Her real breakthrough was in 1999 with a book called The Gruffalo, again illustrated by Axel Scheffler.

In 2011 she became the Children’s Laureate for two years. In 2019 she was awarded the CBE for services to literature.

All the information and pictures have been taken from www.juliadonaldson.co.uk