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. After the war, they were reunited and married, and in 1950 they bought the Hampstead house together with Jerry's mother, his sister Beta and her husband Chris (the two men had met in the P.O.W. camp). When Donaldson was six her father contracted polio and thereafter was confined to a wheelchair, though he still led an active life, working as a lecturer in the Maudsley Hospital's Institute of Psychiatry, where he pioneered genetic studies using the model of identical twins brought up apart. If you like to eat lots of candy and eating it makes you really happy, but at the same time you know this would destroy your teeth, would you choose to eat lots of candy and be happy? Or would you choose not eat it and potentially be unhappy yet healthy? In 1995, while looking for ideas for an educational series of plays based on traditional tales, Donaldson came across a version of a Chinese story about a little girl who escapes being eaten by a tiger by claiming to be the fearsome Queen of the Jungle and inviting him to walk behind her. The tiger misinterprets the terror of the various animals they meet as being related to her rather than him, and flees. Donaldson sensed that this story could be developed into more than an educational item and returned to it later as a possible basis for a picture book. She decided to make the girl a mouse, and chose a fox, owl and snake as woodland rather than jungle creatures but wasn't satisfied with lines like "They ought to know, they really should / There aren't any tigers in this wood". My son loves it because he loves animals. I mean, this kid REALLY loves animals. I'm not sure there are many eighteen month olds who know what a tapir is. The hen, goat, pig and cow in this book... too easy! For about two weeks this was his favourite book in the world. I probably read it aloud about a hundred times in that two weeks. I still have fond memories...

Poetry also featured strongly in Donaldson's early life; she was given The Book of a Thousand Poems by her father when she was five years old, and her grandmother introduced her to Edward Lear’s nonsense rhymes. Donaldson attended New End Primary School and then Camden School for Girls. During her childhood and adolescence she acted (understudying the fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Old Vic where she made the acquaintance of a young Judi Dench and Tom Courtenay), sang with the Children's Opera Group, and learned the piano. In her 30s, she was diagnosed with “cookie-bite” hearing loss, which leaves a bite-shaped hole in the mid-range of the audible spectrum, making it difficult for her to hear some speech and music, and she is helped by lip reading. [9] Elizabeth worked as a part-time secretary and helped her boss, Leslie Minchin, translate German lieder into English. It was a household of music and song: Elizabeth sang with the Hampstead Choral Society, Jerry played the cello in amateur string quartets, and both parents were active members of the Hampstead Music Club. Summer holidays were at Grittleton House in Wiltshire, where Jerry played his cello in a summer school for chamber music, while Julia and Mary romped around and put on musical shows with the other children. The Gruffalo was sent to Reid Books in 1995. Donaldson sent the text to Axel Scheffler, whom she had met only once or twice, briefly, following the publication of A Squash and a Squeeze. Within days Macmillan Children's Books made an offer to publish The Gruffalo, which was illustrated by Scheffler and published in 1999. The Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson moved to Steyning and she is still enjoying a "honeymoon period" in the smallest town she has ever lived in". The Argus. 7 May 2016 . Retrieved 18 January 2019.

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What can you do if your house is too small? The wise old man knows: bring in a flappy, scratchy, noisy crowd of farmyard animals. When you push them all out again, you’ll be amazed at how big your house feels! Teaching Ideas and Resources: English Funnily enough, I find it harder to write not in verse, though I feel I am now getting the hang of it! My novel THE GIANTS AND THE JONESES is going to be made into a film by the same team who made the Harry Potter movies, and I have written three books of stories about the anarchic PRINCESS MIRROR-BELLE who appears from the mirror and disrupts the life of an otherwise ordinary eight-year-old. I have just finished writing a novel for teenagers. This is a good book to read to reception children and year 1, especially if they are learning about rhyme. The book also has a moral within the story. The old lady felt that her house was too small for herself, then the old wise man said to take in few animals, then she realised that her house with the animals inside of it was too small but for her it was perfect. This is a good book to convey a message to children about being thankful for what they have and that others may not have the privilege of things that they have. I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs. A squash and a squeeze is another humorous story by Julia Donaldson that keeps both children and adult amuse till the end. The story is repetitive and is told in a rhyme format, which gives it its dynamism. The illustrations by Axel Scheffler is of an animated one and it captures the eye of the audience brilliantly. I have read this story to a group of reception children and they enjoyed the illustrations and the constant repetition meant that they knew some of the words in the book and could join in with reading the story along with me.

Note: In questions 6 through 8, the words ‘happy and unhappy’ are used for the students to measure their well-being, which might be easier for the younger students to think about. Desire Theories vs. Objective List theoriesThis book reminded me of the above anecdote because in that flat we had my wife and I, three cats and a bay. It really was a squash and a squeeze. I preferred to say it was 'full of life'. My real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes. Rix, Juliet (28 February 2009). "Living without Hamish: how a family copes with suicide". The Guardian.