Frequently Asked Questions - from kids!
Here are some of the questions that kids usually ask me. Of course, I don’t mind answering them again when I come to your school!
How old are you?
I am an elegant lady author. And you’re not really supposed to ask elegant ladies their age. But I don’t care. Getting older is an achievement. I just turned 52 - what an amazing achievement!
Also, grown-ups are always asking children: '“How old are you now?” So perhaps it’s fair to ask us the same question.
Where do you get your ideas?
I keep a sketchbook and just, sort of, sketch around in it now and again. That gets my mind working and quite often ideas will emerge from that. It’s good to keep a notebook or sketchbook with you, because ideas can come from ANYWHERE. Also, I have quite a childish sense of humour. I get ideas from things that make me laugh (ie. LOTS of things).
My children are older now, but they used to give me so many ideas for books. I love kids’ drawings too; they’re full of brilliant ideas for stories and characters.
How many books have you written? And what was the first book that you wrote?
Hang on… I’m counting…
Ok. I’ve illustrated 37 books so far, and I’ve written 9 of those. The remaining 28 books were written by other people, and I did the illlustrations.
The first published book that I wrote (and illlustrated) is called ‘Arthur and the Curiosity’. You can find out more about it here. I worked on it quite a while ago, so you can’t find it in the shops any more. It might be in a library somewhere though.
What advice do you have for people who want to be writers? And can you give me some tips?
Just write! Write anything you want and make up stories that you would like to read yourself.
Some tips are: make sure your story has a beginning, middle and end - and remember you can go back and change things. And, finally, if you’re bored writing your story, then your story might actually be boring - add some exciting bits!
How do you draw so good?
It really is practice. I was quite good at art when I was in school, but then I didn’t draw for years after that. When I started again, I wasn’t good at all. So I bought a sketchbook and started drawing in that. I looked around me and drew what I saw in my sketchbook. I tried out different kids of pencils and paint to see what worked best. I also looked closely other people’s illustrations and tried to work out how they’d done them.
Although I’m working as an illustrator now, I’m still practising too. And I’m still improving!
What’s your favourite book from when you were a kid?
I think it was probably Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. My dad read it to me when I was about 7 or 8 year old.
After that it would have been The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis. I loved the bit about Turkish delight. Both the books have quite a bit of food in them. I love food.
What’s your favourite book that you have done?
It changes all the time! I like my Wolves of Greycoat Hall books a lot. But usually my favourite book is also the most recent book. And at the time of writing, the most recent book I’ve worked on is This Book is a Time Machine (out September 2023).
I have a rabbit called Alice!
What a beautiful name for a rabbit. That wasn’t really a question but I’ll let you off because I like rabbits, especially fluffy ones.
