Julia Donaldson: A life in language

Hello. Picture the scene from about 20 years ago. I'm sitting with my daughter, aged about three. She's sitting on my lap, and I'm holding a book up in front of her so she can see the pictures and turn the pages. The book. isn't a song, but I've made up some kind of dad, half-sung, half-spoken tune to match the words of a chorus in the book. And it's one of those choruses like One Man Went to Moak, and as it appears again and again in the book...

it grows. Here's the first one, while it's still quite short. My tie is a scarf for a cold giraffe, but look me up and down, I'm the smartest giant in town. The next time the chorus comes along, it's grown, and this time it's, My tie is a scarf for a cold giraffe, My shirt's on a boat as a sail for a goat, But look me up and down, I'm the smartest giant in town.

You may not be instantly attracted by my performance, but my daughter is loving the book. She joins in. Who can it be who's giving us this kind of pleasure and fun? Well, parents, grandparents, teachers and anyone involved in caring for children. We'll have recognised these words as written by Julia Donaldson, now officially the most popular author of our time.

former children's laureate and the writer of a quite wonderful series of books for young children. And I'm delighted to say that Julia joins me today. Welcome to the programme, Julia. Lovely to be here. Now, you've got a new book out. It's called Paper Chase, illustrated by Victoria Sunday.

Let's talk about this one. As with most of your books, it's written in rhyme, a rhyming story, in fact. So why is rhyme so important for you? I just always love rhyme. I think it's really partly because I was a songwriter before I wrote any books. And in fact, my very first book, A Squash and A Squeeze, started its life as a song. So it's just been... I think it goes back earlier than that as well. I mean, when I was...

Yeah, when I was five, I was given the book of a thousand poems by my father. I still got that and I learnt all these poems and they were all rhyming poems in those days, off by heart. Well, we'll come back to that. stick with your new book for the moment and I notice in this one you're using a fairly short line for the rhymes often use maybe about four beats with a

Little tiny break in the middle one. I just want to read a bit. Here's a couple from Paper Chase where Ginger's mother bans the friendship between Ginger and James in the book. And the line goes, no more Ginger, no more games. Home on his own goes lonely James. And that seems to be the pattern for that. Why do you like that pattern? Yeah, well, I experiment with different rhyming patterns, but I think this book...

There's a middle section which is a little bit like this is a house that Jack built. So if you think of that, this is the... Dog that chased the cat, the malt that lay in the house, the jackpot. So I think that's where these short lines come from. So do they echo in your head when you're writing and you say there, you know, it's like... This is the house that Jack built. Is that conscious or does it just creep in without you noticing? I think what it is really, it's like a...

You know, I write perhaps in a musical. I'm not counting the number of syllables like French Alexandrines or something like that. It's more like one, two, three, four, and it could be dumb, diddle, dumb, diddle, diddly, dumb. dum-dum-dum-dee-dee-dee dum-dee-dum, you know. So it's a kind of musical rhythm and, yeah, I suppose it is going on in my head, yeah. Yes, and music...

I mean, I can't do that. I can't count the bars. Are you counting the bars? Are you that good? Can you actually do that with words and fit them to bars? You probably do. You know, because you can count. You could go one, two, three, four, Mary at the cottage door. So there's a different number of syllables.

in each line, but I'm sure you've got a sense of rhythm. I know you have, because I've heard you read your poems. Yes, I always get the impression I find it harder than you do, though. Yes, that's right. Now, there's no beasts or monsters in this new book.

paper chase the frame of the story i thought in its own way it's a love story and in books for young children we're not quite sure about love are we we're a little bit tentative about love for young children did you hesitate at all going into that or did you feel quite at home about it? Yeah, it's interesting you're saying love. I would have said friendship, but I'm glad you said love because I feel it's more poignant.

relationship between the boy and the girl although it's very sketchily drawn but because the boy is so sad when they're parted and really misses her so it is a feeling of love but I have done You know, I've done one book, The Scarecrow's Wedding, which that was my first proper love story. But that's a love triangle because there's a David Niven-like character who tries to spoil it all. And I think The Smeds and The Smoos, another book I've done.

which is a bit like Romeo and Juliet, and that's sort of a love story, but they're quite sort of prosaic lovers, Janet. They're called Janet and Bill, for a start, and even though they're aliens, they're quite sort of ordinary. Yeah, I have ventured into that territory, I suppose. And does anyone ever, I mean, do they raise an eyebrow at all as to why you might be dealing with...

friendship going into love, as you say, for very young children. I've always had a sense, if I'm writing about that sort of thing, that somehow it's maybe not appropriate for under five, unless it's filial love, you know, love for mum or love for dad. You see, I don't see the eyebrows raised because, well, I don't do social media for a start, so I steer away from any criticism. And do you have a sense when you're writing that you're going to hand this over?

and then others will make it into a book? Or do you want to be there right the way through? I try not to be too controlling, but I think that it's really the choice. of an illustrator that's important. I think I'm very careful in thinking about who do I want to illustrate this book, but once I've taken that decision, then really I think I'm fairly obliging.

Because I always say it's like you do have a picture in your head and probably when you go on holiday, you have a picture of what this place is going to look like. You get there and it doesn't look like that. then you forget what you had in your head and you found what it's really like. So to me now, in this book...

That's what the tree looks like. That's what ginger looks like. That's what James looks like. And for children, I mean, it is two kinds of language, isn't it? I mean, picture books, by and large as adults, we don't read picture books. I suppose we might read graphic novels and things. But children are learning these under fives, aren't they?

learning the sound of the written word through parents, grandparents reading to them, and they're also learning the language of the art, aren't they, and matching them up? They are learning the language of the art. I remember an illustrator, Shirley Hughes, such a brilliant illustrator, said to me...

It's so important for children to look at these pictures at length because otherwise children, especially nowadays, are just seeing moving images the whole time they're seeing cartoon films. And when a parent is reading... to a child. The parent maybe doesn't notice the pictures that much because they're intent on reading the text. The child is looking at every detail and I've got this book paper chase in front of me and I've just opened it randomly.

And, you know, as well as the things I've mentioned in the text, there's a little mouse in the corner. There's a frog on a stone. A child will notice all these things, won't they? I mean, one of my grandchildren was reading my story, Tabby Mactat. And a thief steals the busker's hat in that story. But my grandson said...

There he is. He's in the picture before. He's in the crowd scene. So Leo had noticed that. I hadn't even noticed, even though I'd seen this illustration countless times. And, of course, that's a great generator for talk, isn't it? That you've written something that's... quite tight it's got this pattern and shape and rhythm and rhyme and then there are these

other things where the child can be picking up and chatting and almost breaking into it, can't they? Yes, but I do think, you know, when you're reading to a child, it's important, especially if there is a rhythm in the story and a pace, not to... sort of keep saying and the girl cleaned her teeth this isn't in my story no one cleans her teeth in this book but you know and you don't sort of start saying

You've got a toothbrush too. What colour is your toothbrush? And I do believe in the story having that momentum. And coherence. Yeah. I mean, you can talk about it afterwards or on another reading you can stop and talk. Well, I suppose there's no hard and fast rule.

I don't want to spoil the plot of Paper Chase, but I think... Another interesting thing about this one is it's got what I might call an industrial sequence, if I can call it that, which was quite a surprise. I was quite surprised by that. Very nicely slotted into the plot. We see how wood makes... Paper. Can you read us a bit so we can hear that? I love the patter of this. It sort of almost matches the industrial process. Yes, so this is where...

The paper's nearly been made and here come the rollers to roll it out flat. And now it is paper. Just look at that. Paper for making the things we all use. Packets for cereal. boxes for shoes. Envelopes, wallpaper, paper for news, paper for kitchens, paper for loos, for carrying shopping and wrapping a toy, for letters of sadness and letters of joy, and a book.

for a girl and a pad for a boy. Lovely. Actually, I've got a little echo there of W.H. Auden's Nightmail, you know, where he says letters of thanks, letters from banks, letters of joy from girl and boy. Did you have that? There is an echo of that. I probably, I definitely remember thinking, oh, it's a bit like double H. And then I had to look that up and make sure I hadn't used it.

Exactly, his words. But I think that's what writers do. I mean, I certainly did that in The Highway Rat, where I was, you know, moulding it on that wonderful poem by Alfred Noyes, The Highway Man. Yeah, I think it's nice to have little... nods to other writers. Yes, I think somebody once said that writing is kind of bric-a-brac, that what you do is you

collect up bits, and you may not even know that you have, and then you're sticking it together to make something new and original. Yes, yes, yes. And I mean, composers do that, isn't it? Composers acknowledge other composers.

I love the book. It's resolved in an emotional, very satisfying way. And I mentioned W.H. Auden there. Can we go back to your childhood? Were you a child who heard and read poetry at home and school? Yes, well, I suppose, you know, I was a child in the 50s and 60s. And, of course, you were very exposed to... I don't know if I'd always call it poetry, but we listen to nursery rhymes, listen with mother on the radio.

or wireless, as it was called then. And, you know, they're always hymns in assembly. They would always rhyme and have a meter to them. Yeah, I had this wonderful book, A Book of a Thousand Poems, which had a lot of sort of poems about... sweet little elves and things. But it also had Keats and Shakespeare and I've still got that book. Did you read it again and again? Was it a treasure for you? I did and I learnt the poems. And my sister and I used to recite this one about Moussey.

Mousie, where is your wee housey? So, yeah, it was just part of our lives, really. Are you quite close in age? Yeah, less than two years. And she's still in my shows when I do book festival shows. And we did the Edinburgh Fringe. and she was acting lots of the parts in that. Do you think that's important to have a kind of, what shall we call it, like a sounding chamber?

and a sort of echo chamber for when you're young and making up things that you've got a sibling who's there in the bedroom and you say, what about this? What about that? Yeah, but I don't know whether it's important, but it's certainly... And I love now still having that relationship. I've just had a couple of my grandchildren on stage with me at Edinburgh. In fact, they were acting Ginger and James from this book.

Yeah, I would hate to be, say, a punch and doody man or woman, you know, just behind a booth, not even seeing an audience, just with these puppets and no one to... No sounding wood afterwards to say, how did it go? I like that interaction. And have you always liked that? Is that something that's been important to you all the way through, the performance side and seeing reactions and hearing what people say?

Well, certainly the performance has always been very important. And in fact, I think probably my writing in a way stemmed from performance because I used to go... busking, you know, when I was this penniless student in Paris, and then I would write songs. you know, for the cinema cues or whatever. And, you know, that's the way it all started, really, through performing. I guess there's plenty of people reading your books to their children that don't see you as...

this person standing there busking to queues in Paris. I mean, I love the idea. I'm quite jealous of it, actually. So what sort of songs did you sing to them? Well, we used to do... We used to do songs from salad days. sang from Oliver, we did Beatles songs and we did songs from Hair but I did make up a French, a song in French which went Vous êtes français In case you don't speak French, it's just your French or English will sing. if you give us your money. Lovely, yes. I mean...

You were singing as well when you were a child? A lot of singing going on in your family? And languages as well? I mean, you've combined languages and singing there. Presumably there was quite a lot of that going on as well? Yes, I was in... It was called the Children's Opera Group, and they would supply children for, you know, if there was a play in London, I grew up in London, and if there were parts for children, they would often go to the Children's Opera Group.

And so Midsummer Night's Dream has singing in it as well as, you know, acting. So I came in mid-production as an understudy for the fairies in Midsummer Night's Dream. And actually, luckily, two of them got ill very quickly. I didn't poison them or anything, and I got to go on and be a mixture of cobweb and moth. There weren't actually enough of us, and we just hoped the audience couldn't count. Yes, and I gather Judi Dench was in that production. Is that right?

Judy Dench was in that production. She was actually, she wasn't Titania. I think later she played Titania, but she was Hermia. And I remember her saying to Barbara Lee Hunt, let's get through this quite quickly so we can go to the dressing room and watch the boat. Grace on my television. Yes, poor put-upon Hermiac, yes. Now, I was at the Hay Festival with you, and you taught the audience sign language, didn't you? Now, why did you do that?

I have to say, I'm not an expert on sound language. I just learned how to do some of the songs in Makaton. But I do wear hearing aids. You know, I've had a hearing problem since I was kind of in my... I think, so it did appeal to do the songs. And also I always found signers are so...

Fascinating. I mean, if ever there's a signer, just forget it if you're on stage because everyone will be watching the signer. And then when we did a show at the Edinburgh Fringe, we acted the Gruffalo and I was the mouse. signing and speaking at the same time. That's quite tricky, but I've sort of scraped by, I think. Well, you gather together these different...

things that you've been doing, busking and singing and making up songs with your sister and sign language, do you see all these as influences? Are they all... pouring into whatever it is you're going to be making up at that moment. Is that how you see it? I sometimes think of a...

right as this great big funnel full of all these different things and then what comes out squeezed through the narrow bit at the bottom. It certainly feels very kind of organic. I think probably that being in Midsummer Night's Dream... especially because I was the understudy. So I was... I could have watched it every night, actually, from the stalls or the gallery, but I would be backstage sitting on old Ninny's tomb and...

And those iambic pentameters, I mean, I knew that play off my heart. And if my mother said... I must do the ironing. I'd say the iron tongue of midnight hath told 12. And I probably now could burst into an iron book. Pentameters talking to you, don't challenge me. No, no, I'm just immediately thinking of Oberon. Yeah, I think that and the music. winter in our house had a big influence now take us to working at the BBC in the early 70s play away in play school

Somewhere or other, we didn't meet. I was working there at just about the same time. And were you a producer? I was a trainee producer. That's right, with Johnny Ball and Floella Benjamin, that sort of thing. Yes, yes, well, they did sing my song Floella. She sang Squash and a Squeeze, so that became my first book. Yes, well, I think I really...

I wanted to be a presenter. I would have loved to be a presenter, but they didn't want me to do that. They just wanted me to write songs for them. Yeah, what happened was that after all the busking I did, I started doing gigs with Malcolm, whom I later... married and we would sing at a dentist dinner or we'd sing at the...

Covent Garden Hat Fair, and I found I'd got quite a lot of songs that were suitable for children, so I sent them to the BBC and they did start getting me to write songs, but it was very up and down, you know. So, you know, you're doing that busking, that's for adults. You're writing now for children, very young children with...

Play away in preschool, really. Play away maybe just a bit older. I mean, how do you write a song for young children? What's going through your mind when you think this is for a four-year-old or this is for a six-year-old? Well, quite often, in fact always, apart from the very first songs that I sent in, they would say, Julia, write a song.

It's about this museum in Ireland. We want one verse about a coelacanth, one verse about a vintage car, one verse about something else, and a chorus saying how wonderful this museum is. Here are some postcards of them. museum write the song so I had a very strict brief yeah and another time was Julie we want a song about crumpling up wrapping paper and throwing it into the bin

Yeah, in a way, it's quite a discipline, though, isn't it, to try and make it work? It is, and I think that's definitely, you asked before, what has fed into my writing, definitely that sort of... It's a bit like when you impose a rhyme structure or something on yourself. I actually find it easier than writing in a total vacuum.

And you've had children, as you've said, so that helps a bit as well because your own children are in your head, aren't they? And you can try things out if you need to. Yeah, I don't... I don't think I tried so many things out on my children, but, yeah, as you say, I mean, I read countless stories to them, so I probably had an idea of what children like. Although, of course, having said that...

I mean, all children are different. People tend to talk, don't they, about children. How do you write for children, this strange breed? And they're just people. They're just younger people, really. I suppose the advantage of having children, or if you're a teacher, the children in your class, is they're sort of in your head, aren't they, as you're thinking, oh, this might tickle them. Oh, that little chap or that little girl that I remember, they like that such and such. Sometimes they...

pop into my head. I don't know whether that happens to you or you think... I think it's all... For me, it happens at a very subconscious level. So if I'm writing in rhyme and I want to rhyme for, say, meat... I wouldn't obviously say effete or something. But I'm not actually thinking, oh, this is suitable for children, this wouldn't be... I'm just trying to write the very best thing.

I can. Like if I was making a cake for a birthday party, I'd kind of forget about the birthday party, just trying to make the most beautiful and delicious cake that I can. Yes. And how do you know when you got it right? I mean, do you sing it to yourself, say it to yourself, say it out loud? Do you try it out? How do you think, ah, yes, I've got that right? Yeah. You know, I was married for 52 years.

And I would always get Malcolm to read back to me what I'd written, usually just at the end, not during the process. And if he stumbled on a line or put the stress in the wrong place... I would go back and re-examine that line. I wouldn't just say, oh, no, no, no, you're supposed to say it like this, you know, because you want the parent, as far as possible, to get it right the first time they read it. So that was very, very helpful. My older son is...

Great, like that. So, you know, I'm adapting. And he played the guitar, didn't he, along with you? Yeah, I can play the guitar, but Alistair and Gerry can both play the guitar. So when we were at Edinburgh doing the book festival... Jerry, bless him, he played two songs. He acted the warthog, he acted Tremosaurus Drip, he acted the fox and the gruffalo and the mean bowerbird, Claude, who steals the nice bowerbird's treasures.

So he learned all those parts. Every parent should have one. Every writer should have such children. I know, I know. Well trained. I'm so proud of him. I know Malcolm would have been just... Dead proud of all of us for going on and doing that show. I'm sure, I'm sure. Quite often in books there's the repetition and they're almost like catchphrases, choruses, easy to remember phrases and so on.

Why do you think that's important for young children, that sense of repetition? Well, I think they like joining in. Actually, I don't... I, as a child, didn't like... complete repetition and I still don't. I think repetition with variety is good. So I used to hate the books which went...

So he went a little further and he met the hen and he said, have you seen my mummy? And the hen said, no. So he went a little further and he met the goat and he said, have you seen my mummy? And the goat said, no. I like to have sort of... Repetition, like in the Gruffalo, you know the mouse is going to say there's a favourite meal which will involve a snake or an owl or a fox, but you don't know what that meal's going to be. So I think, yeah, repetition.

Variety within repetition is the best. Now, let's talk a little bit about your influence. I'm going to embarrass you now. I mean, you must know that single-handedly you've helped probably more children learn... how to read, what reading is, what story is, what poetry is, than almost anyone else ever. I mean, I really mean that. I really mean that. What do you think about that? Well, you're slightly American.

Yeah, well, I think what happens, and this is a great thing, is if a child really likes... book and lots of children do learn they know their picture books off by heart and so many parents I'm sure they've said it to you as well my child can recite this or that book

That child then gets a bit older, they go to school, they start to learn to read, and then they get out their old picture books, which they still kind of do know by heart, but then they find they can sort of read them. They probably can't. But they can, a mixture of decoding and remembering. And it's such a feeling of pride. And they can then read with expression, not woodenly. So, yeah, it's lovely to contribute to that. And I have actually written...

And I'm quite proud of that. I have written a phonic reading scheme and I've written some very short... which are more specifically supposed to help children read. And I'm not trying to poo-poo those things. I think they can still be real books as well. But that body of picture books that you've got, they don't have to be.

phonically regular but have got all this wonderful life and vigour in them. I mean the way you've just described it there, it makes it feel like you're giving young children a platform before they go into school. They're already... bouncing off a springboard of your books with the knowledge of all this. language in them and they arrive at school knowing this stuff it's a it's a wonderful thing and it is it is sad you know that we are always hearing nowadays that there are children

quite a large proportion of children, I think, especially since Covid, who go to school and they haven't got that sort of language. And so it is important to get books into the hands of young children. Let's talk about The Gruffalo. That came out in 1999, I think. It was your monster hit, in all senses of the word. How did that one evolve? How did The Gruffalo come about?

Well, I'd written, I'd had a squash and a squeeze published and I'd done quite a lot of writing, like retelling folk tales and writing plays for educational publishers. And then I think... An editor had said to me... Don't write any more rhyming things. Don't write any more things based on traditional tales. Why don't you try something more sort of modern? So I wrote a few sort of modern, non-rhyming things, which all got rejected.

And then that editor left another editor that came along and said, Julie, why are you writing all these modern non-rhymings? How about writing something that rhymes based on a traditional tale? So that's when I wrote The Gruffalo. Oh, I see. It was a change of editor.

And let's talk again just about rhythm and rhyme. I think we've had a conversation before. I get the sense you're quite a purist, that once you have a... It's not a criticism by any means, that when you've decided, I'm going to be having this rhythm... then I'm going to really stick to it and that that really matters to you. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't...

Always write in rhyme. I think there has to be reason to write in rhyme. Unless a book lends itself to some sort of chorus or a bit like a song, I would write it. in prose. When I'm writing in rhyme, yeah, I do much prefer true rhymes to half rhymes. I'm a bit like Noel Coward, couldn't stand little Tommy Tucker sings for his supper. What shall we give him brown bread and butter? Because...

Supper, tucker and butter don't rhyme. And I am a purist like that. But some of my books are a bit looser, like Snail and the Whale. isn't quite so rigid. So it just depends how the humour takes me and, you know, what the book is. Yes. Yes. Well, look, can we hear a bit of The Gruffalo? Any bit you like? Would you like to choose a bit? OK.

All right, I'd better just... I know it by heart, so I'll just start from the beginning. Oh, lovely. Choose any bit you like. OK. A mouse took a stroll through the deep, dark wood. A fox saw the mouse, and the mouse looked good. Where are you going to, little brown mouse? Come and have lunch in my underground house. It's terribly kind of you, Fox. But no, I'm going to have lunch with a Gruffalo. A Gruffalo?

What's a Gruffalo? A Gruffalo? Why, didn't you know? He has terrible tusks and terrible claws and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws. Well, where are you meeting him? Here, by these rocks. And his favourite food is roasted fox. Roasted fox? I'm off. Fox said, goodbye, little mouse, and away he sped. Silly old Fox, doesn't he know there's no such thing as a greffalo?

And hopefully the audience will all be joining in that last line. I think they will. I think they will. And the story, it fits a folklore pattern that's already in your head of the little... boy, girl or creature up against the monster. Why do you think children like that? What's the appeal? I suppose children are small. You know, it's nice to perhaps read a story where someone...

small, you know, defeats someone. And it's brain overborne as well. You know, it's not just that you're small. If you have your wits about it, if you're clever enough. But then I sort of rebelled a bit against that with Zog and I made Zog be big and clumsy because I think sometimes these little children get away with a lot.

Yes, stick up for big and clumsy people. Thank you very much, Julia. Yes, I appreciate that. Very good. And then with Gruffalo, which became such a huge success, do you think it accelerated you? Did you suddenly think, yes.

I've got this. Did it feel like somehow or other you'd... Well, I don't think it ever feels completely like that. I think every time I write something, I... think how did I ever do this before you know it feels like the first time really And it's a mixed blessing. You know, no one wants to get rejection letters, but then on the other hand, you don't want people just on the strength of your reputation to accept just anything you write.

I think it all really took off more after Room on the Broom, probably. Yes. And you change Illustrator, or the publishers change Illustrators, or a combination of both. Why is that? A combination with some books just suit different illustrators and also one illustrator couldn't probably keep up. Yes, so I think the first book I did that wasn't illustrated by Axel was a retelling of a tale. It was The Magic Paintbrush, Joel Stewart, and he did beautiful sort of Chinese-type...

like based in Chinese art, and he was brilliant at that, and that wasn't so much Axel's style. But other times I write something and it won't be right for any of my illustrators, and then we have to go about finding someone new, and that's quite... difficult and quite scary.

Yes. Well, we're just going to talk a little bit about our relationship with the Open University now. We're asking how did terms like down the rabbit hole and gaslighting enter the English language? How do other languages adapt? expressions like these. And you can find out in an interactive guide with the Open University's experts. All you have to do is visit the BBC Radio 4 word of mouth page and follow the links to the Open University.

Well, Julia, we're coming to the end of this conversation. So thanks very much indeed for coming on Word of Mouth. And I wonder, could you sign us off with the end of Room on the Broom? which was another one of my daughter's favourites. In the book, you announce that there's a truly magnificent broom. So once again, thank you ever so much and sign us off, Julian.

with seats for the witch and the cat and the dog, a nest for the bird and a shower for the frog. Yes, cried the witch, and they all clambered on. The witch tapped the broomstick and whoosh! They were gone.