The book was made into an audiobook narrated by Josie Lawrence and adapted for the stage by Tall Stories Theatre Company in 2008, and has toured around the United Kingdom and the rest of the world since then. Peter Fogarty has kindly contributed a set of Thinking Hat resources linked to the book (see Resources below). I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.

The kids love this story. They have watched the show over and over and love the book. They both gave the book 5 stars, which might not be fair, but they love it. They can practically recite the lines of the book. Still, it's the first time to read it for all of us. Admittedly his favourite book in the whole wide world is a bland little story about monkeys - but it does have a button which makes monkey noises when you press it, so I can see the appeal! Look at the use of punctuation within the story. Can you explain why each type of punctuation has been used?I have a little boy and love reading to him, so this reading list will cover the classic (and new) children’s stories we’re enjoying together. And you can never get them started on fantasy too young - good witches and bad dragons - perfect! We'll get him reading Tolkien before he's ten... The ‘horrible beast’ that rises from the ditch makes lots of strange noises. Can you think of other animal noises? Can you find other examples of onomatopoeia?

Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta. Anyone with small children (and older ones too, I'm sure) will be familiar with Julia Donaldson, in particular The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child, which - along with Room on the Broom - have been made into animated films that regularly show on the ABC. My son, at three, enjoys the books but finds the movies too scary - he's still young like that. Following the resounding success of my Locus Quest, I faced a dilemma: which reading list to follow it up with? Variety is the spice of life, so I’ve decided to diversify and pursue six different lists simultaneously. This book falls into my BEDTIME STORIES list.The witch is grateful to the animals for saving her life. Think of things that you are grateful for. How could you say ‘thank you’ for these? One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading. It is in my opinion often rather difficult if not even pretty well rare to find poetry specifically conceptualised for younger children that is not only thematically and content wise fun and engaging but that also presents itself at the same time as lyrically and rhythmically adept (in other words, I mean to say that I do tend to find it often not all that easy to find children specific poetry that does not read somewhat awkwardly and haltingly at times, that continuously presents both a good and successful rhyme scheme and a decent and melodious lyrical flow).