• Twisting Fairy Tales

    I’ve been doing lots of school visits recently and it’s been so amazing seeing so many children making up their own characters, developing new plots and lit up by the power of stories. I had a wonderful World Book Day week, visiting schools in Rainham, Romford, Bedford and Norwich, and before that in Ambrosden and many others.   I’ve even had someone dressing up as Very Little Red Riding Hood for World Book Day – doesn’t she look brilliant?! I start by making sure we all know the story of Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty or Rapunzel. What are the key events in those stories? Who are the main characters? For…

  • Ten Cars and a Million Stars

    Alice is counting to Baby in this counting storybook, illustrated by the wonderful Sue Heap.  I’m so pleased to be working with Sue again! See if you can count all the shy ducks, fast cars, smart penguins, cuddlye cats, floppy bunnies, shaky rattles, tiny mice, big dinosaurs, friendly monkeys and silly animals – all the way up to a hundred… and beyond! Published by Walker Books. To buy Ten Cars and a Million Stars, click here.

  • ALCS Educational Writers’ Award

    Yesterday I was here… Yes, the Houses of Parliament! I was there to attend the ceremony for the Educational Writers’ Award for my book Who Eats Who.  This award is the ONLY UK award for educational writing, so it was a real honour to be on the shortlist. Who Eats Who is a non-fiction book for 6-7 year olds about food chains – and how we’re all part of them!  It’s included in Oxford University Press’s fantastic InFact series which also features books about space, the deep sea, making comics and puppets and the top ten worst ever jobs for children.  Check it out! Who Eats Who had strong competition! The very brilliant…

  • Oxfordshire Book Awards, 2015

    Yesterday, Sue Heap and I had the honour of attending the 2015 Oxfordshire Book Awards where – very wonderfully – Very Little Red Riding Hood won the award for Best Picture Book. I grew up in Oxford (my old Middle School was a stone’s throw from the Oxford High School, where the ceremony was held), and I still live here, so to win this award – voted for entirely by children from 30 schools in Oxfordshire – is a real honour for me. My parents and my family (who have all inspired me to write in so many ways) all came along, so it was a particularly special afternoon. We…

  • Cake, celebrations…and cracking creations!

    What a few weeks it’s been!  Sue Heap and I launched Very Little Cinderella at the magical Story Museum in Oxford with a proper picture book party. It was a delicious celebration, complete with balloons, cake…and the creation of a picture of the Very Big Woods, to which EVERYONE contributed!   Sue and I then had ANOTHER party (well, you can never have too many) in Blackwell’s Bookshop in Broad Street, Oxford. There was more reading, drawing, signing – and a Very Big Cake! (We also got to have a cuppatea in the ‘Gaffer’s’ old, perfectly preserved room, and sign the Big Blackwell Book, autographed by everyone from Maurice Sendak to Seamus Heaney…

  • Once Upon a Time

    Last week I went to see Into the Woods at the cinema.  This was not just a normal night out at the pictures. No, this was a Big Deal. Let me come clean. I’ve loved this fairy-tale musical with a proper ache for years and years and years. It was one of the Wood-y touchstones for Sue Heap and I on the day we met, thinking about where the Very Littles might live. I know the songs so well that it was like having a personal secret revealed when I heard Red Riding Hood singing ‘I Know Things Now’ on the radio the other day. If you don’t know it,…

  • Just Say Yes!

    Turning off that critical voice This post originally appeared on the wonderful Picture Book Den website: http://picturebookden.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/just-say-yes-turning-off-that-critical.html I’m doing a comedy improvisation course at the moment. Yes, me – picture book writer and editor – doing comedy impro like Whose Line Is It Anyway! I still find that quite amazing to write down.   I did it (partly) to take myself out of my writer-ly comfort zone where I forever fiddle with individual words for picture books…and instead to explore spontaneous storytelling. For in this case, impro, with the brilliant Kepow Theatre Company, is less about “Tell us a joke about a toaster! Now!” and more about character and plot – creating stories out…

  • Hello!

    I write picture books and longer stories for children.  I also write non-fiction books for children, too.     The best part of my job is making things up…following an idea and seeing where it leads me! How did you become a writer? I used to be a commissioning editor at Oxford University Press, which means I asked lots of authors to write books and then worked with them on their stories.  I eventually realized that I really wanted to write books myself! So I left, and started writing books at our kitchen table. Or in cafés. Or in the garden. Just about anywhere, really! Where do you live? I grew up in…

  • Very Little Rapunzel

    Very Little Rapunzel has very LONG hair – and she refuses to get a haircut.  But then she gets NITS! How long will it take to comb her hair with a VERY small comb…and will the Very Little Prince ever be able to get down from her tower? You can buy Very Little Rapunzel here.  Illustrated by Sue Heap   Praise for Very Little Rapunzel: ‘So brilliantly observed, funny and cute! Again, this one really hit the nail on the head for us – having spent hours and hours virtually every morning trying to sort out Charlotte’s hair before school. Brilliantly observed and voiced as ever, and Charlotte says this…

  • Very Little Red Riding Hood

    Very Little Red Riding Hood is little. Very little. She’s off to her  Grandmama’s for a sleepover and she won’t let anything stand in her way. Not even a Wolf.  Join her on a very BIG adventure! WINNER, Best Picture Book award, Oxfordshire Book Awards WINNER, ‘What’s the Story’ award, Coventry Inspiration Book Awards Nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Buy Very Little Red Riding Hood here. Illustrated by Sue Heap Praise for Very Little Red Riding Hood ‘★★★★★ ‘This quirky take on the original is fabulous – and sure to become a bedtime delight.’ The Sun ‘Delightful…switches on a nightlight to bleach out the darkness of the Grimms’ version.  A perfect present.’ Children’s Book…