Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
WHAT A MAGICAL DRAGON!
He’s too clumsy to earn gold stars at school – until a feisty princess comes to the rescue. Zog is the latest Julia Donaldson book to get a beautiful BBC adaptation for Christmas Day
‘I’m not sure what Prince William will think of it’
Julia Donaldson admits she isn’t sure what her most famous fans – namely the Royal Family – will think of the latest TV adaptation of one of her bestselling children’s books. Prince William recently declared that his family were fans of Julia’s work, and that The Gruffalo was a particularly ‘big hit’ in their house. But Zog, about the adventures of an accident-prone dragon who wants to be the best student at dragon school, and his companion, a princess who’d rather be a doctor than sit around in a palace looking pretty, might raise a few royal eyebrows.
One of the most successful British writers ever and a former Children’s Laureate whose books have been turned into hugely popular BBC films for Christmas since 2009, Julia is practically a national treasure but she has always danced to her own tune. While Zog is ostensibly about a clumsy dragon’s mishaps, it’s the princess who’s there to help him every time with her emergency medicine bag that turns the stereotype on its head.
Each year Zog and his schoolmates are set a task by their teacher Madam Dragon. In the first year it’s learning to fly, but Zog crashes into a tree. In year two it’s learning how to roar, but Zog practises so much he loses his voice. In the third year they must learn to breathe fire, but Zog ‘blew with all his might. He twirled around in triumph... and h is wing t ip caught alight.’
Each time he fails, a mysterious young girl always comes by to patch him up. When he sets his wing ablaze, she says, ‘You poor old thing. Perhaps you’d like a nice stretchy bandage for your wing.’
She comes into her own in year four when Zog is struggling to find a princess to capture, and she reveals she is one – Princess Pearl – and is happy to be captured. In year five the dragons are being taught how to fight when a knight, Sir Gadabout, arrives to rescue the princess, but she has other ideas. ‘Don’t rescue me! I won’t go back to being a princess and prancing round the place in a silly frilly dress,’ she tells Gadabout. ‘I want to be a doctor, and travel here and there. Listening to people’s chests and giving them my care.’
The book has sold over 1.5 million copies since it was first published in 2010. It’s also one of Julia’s most controversial tales. ‘I get fan mail from mothers of girls who say it’s good because it doesn’t have frilly dresses and lots of pink,’ says Julia. ‘They say it has a feminist message, though that wasn’t what I had in mind when I wrote it. I’m not sure what Prince William and his family will think of it. It does say the world has too many princesses...
‘Some people have suggested it’s anti-royal but that wasn’t what I was thinking. There’s a line in the sequel when the princess is told by her uncle, the King, that, “Princesses can’t be doctors, silly girl.” But there’s no reason why they can’t be. She’s a very modern princess.’ Maybe
something for Princess Charlotte to ponder – her father, after all, was an air ambulance pilot.
The book was written years before actress Keira Knightley said she would stop her daughter watching Disney versions of fairy tales because too many princesses were just waiting around to be rescued. But Julia, 70, says she never aims to moralise, and her stories feature creatures and characters both good and bad. ‘I think certain fairytale heroines are good role models for girls. Some are very strong and gutsy. I suppose Sleeping Beauty is quite passive but look at Goldilocks – she’s a burglar! I think people tend to see something that isn’t there. I never write with a message, but your underlying principles and ideas come out when you write. I just want people to get along.’
Julia’s never been in need of rescue herself. She’s writ- ten nearly 200 books that have been translated into around 100 languages. Countless items of merchandise related to her books are on sale, there have been numerous theatre adaptations and there are even themed rides at Chessington World of Adventures.
Married to retired paediatrician Malcolm and the mother of three boys (the eldest of whom, Hamish, was bipolar and died when he was just 25), London-born Julia didn’t start writing books until she was 45. Until then she wrote songs for children’s TV, but that all changed in 1993 when a publisher contacted her and asked if she could turn one of them, A Squash And A Squeeze, into a book.
Two illustrators turned down the job before Axel Scheffler, a German living in England, said yes. Together they are sales dynamite, with Axel’s vivid, amusing pictures complementing Julia’s magical rhyming couplets.
Yet despite being in the public eye since The Gruffalo became a hit 20 years ago – and becoming a millionaire several times over – Julia remains bemused by her celebrity. Surprisingly, she says writing doesn’t come entirely naturally to her. ‘It’s more often that I don’t have an idea than I do,’ she says. ‘It can take me months to write a book. One of the hardest things is making sure it’s not too predictable. The idea for Zog came from my publisher, who wanted me to do something on dragons. I thought of the words “Madam Dragon” and wondered who she could be. I went through various professions until I came up with schoolteacher. Then I thought of Zog. Z is quite a dragonly letter, isn’t it? Certain letters of the alphabet have different characteristics and I pictured my dragon zig-zagging around. Zog was just going to have fun toasting marshmallows with the princess, but then Malcolm said they should do something meatier. He’s a doctor, and I thought Pearl could have medical ambitions. In some ways this story is an ode to my husband.’
Once again, the adaptation has been made by Magic Light Pictures, who received an Oscar nomination for The Gruffalo. In Zog they’ve created the world of knights and dragons so beautifully it may prove the most popular of all the adaptations of her work. ‘I felt a bit tearful watching it,’ Julia admits. ‘It’s so lovely.’
As ever, a host of big-name actors, all fans, provide the voices, with Sir Lenny Henry narrating. ‘The story has a lovely lyricism and is outrageous and surreal – I like that,’ he says.
Hugh Skinner – Prince William in The Windsors – who voices Zog, says he was thrilled to be asked to take part. ‘I couldn’t believe my luck. The book has a fantastic message about not being afraid to be different.’
And Tracey Ullman, who plays Madam Dragon, adds, ‘It’s a quality piece that’s classic and charming.’
Meanwhile, Julia has just finished writing a new book about aliens, which Axel is illustrating. ‘It’s about people talking to each other, not isolating ourselves,’ says Julia. ‘You could call it timely, but that’s all we humans really want, isn’t it?’
Zog, Christmas Day, 4.50pm, BBC1.