The Gruffalo author talks about life after losing her husband and collaborator, Malcolm - and her chart-topping niece Lola Young. Julia Donaldson has become an unofficial member of my family. Every day we read about the eavesdropping ladybird, the plucky mouse, the witch, the Superworm or the Teeny Weeny Genie.
We’ve wolfed down the dozen film adaptations, been on a Gruffalo trail in an arboretum, and endlessly listen to Stick Man and The Highway Rat . So when I meet the creator of all these stories, I half curtsy. “It’s an honour to meet you,” I say before wittering about my two-year-old son.
Unsurprisingly Donaldson is unfazed by such fangirling; meeting overexcited parents who believe that their children are special has long been part of her role as the doyenne of children’s literature. Her new book, Gozzle , tells the tale of a freshly hatched gosling who attaches herself to a reluctant bear convinced he is “Daddy”. Over the changing seasons the bear gets less grouchy, Gozzle grows up and flies the cave and - spoiler alert - the pair reunite.
It is lump-in-the-throat stuff, thanks to Sara Ogilvie’s illustrations. “A child can be terribly annoying and you wish you had some more of your own time,” Donaldson says of the theme, flicking through a copy. “But then you find that you love them to bits and when they’re asleep you want to go and look at them.
” She points to Ogilvie’s drawings. “I do particularly love these illustrations.” The 76-year.