Look at the use of speech marks within the story. Could you use these to turn the story into a play and perform it to others? Write a diary entry from the point of view of the Highway Rat. What does he do each day? How does he feel about it? Walsh, John (3 October 2015). "Julia Donaldson interview: The Gruffalo author on how Judi Dench and busking helped her career". The Independent . Retrieved 12 April 2020. 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. 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.

As mom who was an English Lit major, I LOVE this cheeky little book...it's a retelling of/homage to Alfred Noyes' poem "The Highwayman" (without all the, you know, shooting and death and ghosts and whatnot). My son loves the great rhythm, and at two, fills in the words at the end of each stanza. The fact that it's a long poem makes it a fun read-aloud, and it's great to start to expose little ones to poetry concepts at an early age, from a literacy standpoint. Plus, it's just fun. Donaldson has also performed jointly with her illustrators, particularly Axel Scheffler and Lydia Monks. She has performed the Donaldson/Scheffler books not only in English but also in German on several tours and at the Berlin Festival. In 2007, when Malcolm took a sabbatical from his job, he joined Julia on a World Tour, acting and singing in Bermuda, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and America. As the story develops, the Highway Rat’s horse has to carry more of the things that he has stolen. How much might each of these things weigh? How much would the horse have to carry in total? The Highway Rat is a baddie and he takes whatever food he wants from any traveller that he stops. Pastries, puddings, buns, biscuits, nuts, fish, milk, flies and even a bunch of clover and a leaf, the last mentioned from an army of ants! He even steals his own horse's hay!

Diaries & Calendars

From the 1990s when Donaldson was extensively visiting school and libraries, she extended techniques learned in Bristol and Brighton to encourage children to act and sing with her. Following the publication of The Gruffalo she was invited to book festivals, participating in the Edinburgh International Book Festival every year from 1999 onwards, and appearing regularly at Hay, Cheltenham and Bath festivals, as well as at many theatres. We have spoken about how the book rhymes, and how it can be read in a rhythmical way. The second time that we read it, the children were able to join in with some of the repetitive sentences, which they all really enjoyed. 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] 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. Once in Glasgow, Donaldson 'pitched' once again for song-writing commissions with the BBC. Between 1990 and 1994 she wrote for various programmes including Thinkabout Science (two series) and Playdays, composing songs for presenters and puppets (such as Lizzie and the Whybird) to sing.

In 1989 Malcolm was appointed to Glasgow University as senior lecturer in child health and the family, now five following the arrival of Jerry in 1987, moved to Bearsden. 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.

Find out about the police and how they help people in society. Could you invite a member of the police force to your school to talk to you about their jobs? What questions would you ask them?

You get a sense (or at least I did) whilst reading the book that it’s a very ‘active’ story. By that I don’t just mean its plot is full of cause and effect, but also that it lends itself to being acted out. This is a fun story that you can use to celebrate and promote reading. Using some of your class as a chorus, a few children as the lead characters and after having made character masks and props in class, The Highway Rat would make a perfect assembly piece.

Credits

I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him). Draw a picture showing the inside of one of the Highway Rat’s bags. What different items has he stolen? 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.

a b Franklin-Wallis, Oliver (17 December 2020). "How Julia Donaldson conquered the world". The Guardian . Retrieved 28 December 2020. Both Julia and Axel enjoy international renown for their work. Julia was the UK Children’s Laureate 2011-13 and honoured with an MBE for services to Literature. Axel’s artwork is exhibited internationally; he has illustrated for many charities, and designed the Royal Mail Christmas stamps in 2012. In her laureate role Donaldson has campaigned passionately against library cuts and closures, writing articles, meeting ministers and – with Malcolm Donaldson – embarking on a 6-week tour of UK libraries in autumn 2012. In all of the 38 libraries the visiting children were requested to perform a short play or song based on a picture book, as well as joining in Donaldson's own stories and songs. The tour was designed to celebrate libraries but also to generate publicity about the plight of some of them. [ citation needed] Personal life [ edit ]The author uses different words to describe how the Highway Rat speaks (e.g. declared, bellowed). Can you think of any more?