Sharing a Shell

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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.

The illustrations are bright and eye catching for the children and they loved the glittery look and feel to the pictures. It was nice to have a story based underwater for a change and good for them to learn about what crabs two friends are as not all of the children had seen that type from creature before. Sharing a Shell is a lovely story about a hermit crab who when he finds a nice new shell decides he doesn't want to share it with his friends but soon discovers it is a lot easier when you're friends are there to help you. Create some puppets of the crab, anemone and bristle worm. Could you use these to perform the story to an audience?

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I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married. 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. I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books. 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.

Sharing a Shell is a delightful rhyming book with vibrant glittery illustrations to capture the attention of little eyes and ears. This story highlights the important role that sharing plays in building lasting friendships. The characters work well in a team, each doing their own job to keep their little worlds running smoothly. This story could be a great springboard to a discussion around using our individual strengths to cooperate with one another in a team. How is glitter used in the illustrations? Think about the different materials that artists can use and try to use them in different ways. 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. Make a video to retell the story. Can you include pictures, narration, music and sound effects? Watch this example for inspiration:Retell the story in the form of a playscript, adding speech and stage directions where appropriate. The above video may be from a third-party source. We accept no responsibility for any videos from third-party sources. Please let us know if the video is no longer working. This is a great book that shows the ups and downs friendships can have but still shows that there's always a way to work through problems. With sharing being difficult for children it is lovely how we get to see the crab facing the consequences of his decisions not to share and the children got to think about what they thought was the right thing for crab to do. With her 2004 picture book Sharing a Shell British children's author Julia Donaldson has a hermit crab busily searching on the beach and in tidal pools for a new home as his/her older abode is no longer big enough. And upon finding a new and suitably spacious shell in which to live, a sea anemone comes along and asks to share the hermit crab's new place of residence with the promise to protect the crab (and of course also the shell) from predators, and then a passing bristleworm also asks, offering to keep the shell clean ad tidy in return (and with the crab quite readily agreeing to basically having two permanent roommates). But after a period of time a bigger shell is once again needed, and while at first the hermit carb, sea anemone and bristleworm squabble amongst themselves and end up going their separate ways, at the end of Sharing a Shell, the bristleworm finds a new and larger shell, and crab, sea anemone and bristleworm once again move in together.