It’s mind-blowing our books are now a Christmas tradition
Gruffalo creator Julia Donaldson tells Rick Fulton she’s proud to see her children’s stories come to life on TV
CHRISTMAS wouldn’t be the same without Julia Donaldson.
Whether it’s Santa putting one of her books – such as The Gruffalo or Room on the Broom – in a child’s stocking or the family coming together to watch an animated adaptation of one of her stories.
Julia, 73, admits “it’s a bit mindblowing” to think that millions of people will be settling down on Christmas Day to watch the latest adaption – Superworm.
She said: “Not all my stories are very Christmassy but, touch wood, up until now they have always been shown on Christmas Day.
“I suppose it has become quite the tradition really.
“We always watch the animation, but it’s a bit mind-blowing to think there are millions of people in the UK watching at Christmastime, too.”
Already a go-to for most parents, Julia’s stories have been lovingly brought to life since The Gruffalo was shown on Christmas Day in 2009, with Robbie Coltrane in the title role.
Since then we’ve enjoyed The Gruffalo’s Child in 2011, Stick Man in 2015, Zog in 2018, The Snail and the Whale in 2019 and Zog and the Flying Doctors last year.
It wouldn’t be Christmas without a TV adaptation of a Donaldson-Axel Scheffler title.
A Donaldson book sells every 11 seconds in the UK and between 2010 and 2019, she sold more than 27million in the UK – nine million more than the next biggest seller, David Walliams.
Many of the stories were written in Glasgow. She and her husband Malcolm, a retired doctor who worked at Yorkhill, lived in Bearsden for 25 years until 2014 when they moved to Sussex to be nearer their sons Alastair and Jerry and their families. Julia is now a gran to nine kids all under the age of 11. For those of u s (surely every parent in the UK who has had kids since The Gruffalo was published in 1999) who have read one of her books to our children at night, it must be amazing for her own family to hear the clever rhymes from the person who dreamt them up in the first place?
Julia said: “I think it’s when they go to school that they start feeling a sense of, I hope, pride.
“Obviously when they’re very little, they just [think], ‘Granny writes these books’. And, of course, children don’t really understand what it means to write a book.
“In a signing queue, a mother might say to their child, ‘Oh look, this is the lady who wrote your favourite book’, and the child immediately thinks I have got some paper and glue and stuff and made that child’s individual book.
“It takes them a while to understand this is the lady who makes up the stories in her head. Lots of schools do projects about my books, and some seem to have a ‘Julia Donaldson’ class. I don’t think any of my grandchildren’s schools do, though.”
If there’s a secret to her success it’s that the books are sugary sweet.
Stick Man, for example, is about a family member disappearing, which she now realises reflected the pain at the loss of her eldest son, Hamish.
He suffered from Schizoa affective disorder, and took his own life in 2003 at the age of 25. Julia worked through her grief releasing 11 new titles in 2005.
She said: “After Hamish died, people would say to me, ‘You are so wonderful to still be writing’. But in a way we were more wonderful keeping going while it was all
happening. We did a lot of grieving for Hamish long before he died.”
All her books have a happy ending and she knows that this isn’t always the case in life. But as she’s writing for young people, a happy ending is needed.
She said: “To grow up with stories helps you have aspirations, even if life doesn’t turn out like that.
“Even as grown-ups, we know there is a lot of sadness in life but if we didn’t have those stories, aspirations and a sense of what’s ideal, life would be much harder to live.”
In her 30s she was diagnosed with “cookie-bite” hearing loss – named for the bite-shaped hole that it leaves in the mid-range of the audible spectrum, making it difficult for sufferers to hear some speech and music.
Julie finds wearing masks difficult as she lip-reads to understand people in shops.
While not claiming face coverings are unnecessary, she would like to see everyone wearing clear fabric masks to allow lip-reading as one in six of us struggles with our hearing.
While she was unable to appear at events during the Covid pandemic, the performer in Julia saw her making weekly videos from her home, singing songs with Malcolm on guitar and inviting her favourite illustrators to show young viewers how to draw characters.
From an early age Julia had wanted to be a poet and studied drama at Bristol University.
After meeting Malcolm, then a medical student, they busked around Europe and the US, with Julia singing songs she had made up.
They wed in 1972 and even recorded an album.
She became a teacher and then a mum. In 1991, she turned one of her songs, A Squash and a Squeeze, into a book and The Gruffalo, written in Scotland, made her into a phenomenon. Superworm, published in 2012 and also written in Scotland before their move down south, is the ninth TV adaption of a Donaldson/ Scheffler title for BBC One. Last year’s Zog and the Flying Doctors saw an impressive seven million viewers on the big day. For those who are yet to be acquainted with this unlikely comic hero, the super-long and superstrong Superworm is always saving the day. But who can save him when he gets too full of himself and is captured by the evil Wizard Lizard? As always it stars a first-rate voice cast, including Olivia Colman as narrator, Matt Smith as Superworm himself and annual returnee Rob Brydon as the Crow. The inspiration for Superworm came from her grandchildren.
She said: “Axel Scheffler is very good at drawing little bugs. If you look at any of the other books, there’s always little butterflies or ants he’s created which weren’t in the text.
“For a long time, I thought I’d love to do a book about insects, bugs and garden creatures, but I couldn’t really think of a hook to hang it on.
“Then, separately from that, I thought I’d never done a super-hero book – probably at the stage one of my grandchildren was into Batman, Superman and Spider-Man. So, I put the two together and my superhero would be this worm.” ●Super worm is on BBC One on Christmas Day at 2.30pm.
Not all my stories are Christmassy but they have always been shown on Christmas Day