Literary Birthday – 16 September – Julia Donaldson

Happy Birthday, Julia Donaldson, born on 16 September 1948.

Julia Donaldson Quotes

1. [I get ideas] Anywhere and everywhere: things that happen to my children; memories of my own childhood; things people say; places I go to; old folk tales and fairy stories. The hard part for me is not getting the idea, it is turning it into a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
2. It can take months or years for the idea to grow in my head and for me to plan the book. This is a very important part. Then, when I am ready it could take anything between a week (for a picture book) and six months (for a chapter book) to write it.
3. When I’m writing a rhyming book I start off with a pencil or pen, writing in a big exercise book and doing lots of doodles along the way. If the book isn’t going to rhyme I often write it on the computer.
4. Two of my great passions are for drama and music. Having come to book-writing via song-writing, I often write in verse, and the sound of the words is as important to me as their sense.

Here is a poem (from Julia’s Crazy Mayonnaisy Mum anthology) to describe that wonderful journey into other worlds that reading takes us on:

Julia Donaldson is an English writer and playwright best known for her popular rhyming stories for children. Her books, many illustrated by Axel Scheffler, include The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo’s Child, A Squash and a Squeeze, and Cave Baby. More than 65 million copies of her books have been sold worldwide. Donaldson has published 184 works, including books for children, plays, and educational material. Sixty-four of her works are widely available in bookshops, while 120 are intended mainly for schools, including her Songbirds phonics reading scheme. From 2011 to 2013, Donaldson served as the UK Children’s Laureate. She was appointed an MBE in 2011 for services to literature and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018. She was made a CBE in the 2019 New Year Honours. In January 2025, Donaldson became Britain’s best-selling author, overtaking J. K. Rowling by around 600,000 sales. Her success reflects the enduring popularity of her rhythmic, playful stories and their appeal to young readers.

Source for quotes 1-3 / Source for quote 4
Image: Author’s website

by Amanda Patterson
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