The Highway Rat

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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. The Highway Rat is described as a ‘baddie’ and a ‘beast’. Can you think of any other words that might be used to describe him? In 1977/6 Donaldson studied at Brighton College of Education for a Postgraduate Certificate in Education and worked for two years as an English teacher at St Mary's Hall in Brighton until the arrival of their first child Hamish in 1978, after which she never returned to full-time employment. The couple moved to Lyon in France for a year (1979–80) with Hamish, returning to Brighton where their second son Alastair was born in 1981. [5] 1980s [ edit ] a b "Entertainment stars in New Year Honours". BBC News. 28 December 2018 . Retrieved 29 December 2018. 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.

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. 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? 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. 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.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. a b Franklin-Wallis, Oliver (17 December 2020). "How Julia Donaldson conquered the world". The Guardian . Retrieved 28 December 2020. Donaldson's parents, James (always known as Jerry) and Elizabeth, met shortly before the Second World War, which then separated them for six years. Jerry, who had studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Oxford University, spent most of the war in a prisoner-of-war camp where his knowledge of German earned him the position of an interpreter. Elizabeth, also a good German speaker with a degree in languages, meanwhile did war work in the WRNS. The Highway Rat is our new book for our Literacy lessons in Year 1. They have all really engaged with the story and the characters. It has provided us with many different discussion points - one child pointed out to me today that the Highway Rat is naughty not only because he steals people's food, but also because he talks to strangers! This gave us the opportunity to have a little PSHE talk about 'stranger danger', and why the Highway Rat has not been making good choices!

In 1995, while looking for ideas for an educational series of plays based on traditional tales, Donaldson came across a version of a Chinese story about a little girl who escapes being eaten by a tiger by claiming to be the fearsome Queen of the Jungle and inviting him to walk behind her. The tiger misinterprets the terror of the various animals they meet as being related to her rather than him, and flees. Donaldson sensed that this story could be developed into more than an educational item and returned to it later as a possible basis for a picture book. She decided to make the girl a mouse, and chose a fox, owl and snake as woodland rather than jungle creatures but wasn't satisfied with lines like "They ought to know, they really should / There aren't any tigers in this wood".Rix, Juliet (28 February 2009). "Living without Hamish: how a family copes with suicide". The Guardian. It could also be used for PSHE lessons, to explore why stealing is wrong and how it can affect the victim’s life. In science they can look at food chains and animal habitats and use the story to explore these topics further. 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.

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.

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 ] 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 1983 the family of four moved to Bristol where Malcolm Donaldson was appointed as Senior Registrar in Paediatrics to United Bristol Hospitals. By then the television writing had dried up and the folk scene had waned. Julia Donaldson wrote and sang a few topical songs for adult radio programmes (including one about the Guinness Distillers take-over bid, which appeared on Financial World Tonight), did occasional amateur acting and street theatre, and wrote the songs for the Kingsdown community play Nine Trees Shade. She also became a volunteer in Hamish's primary school, hearing the children read aloud. She devised short plays with the right number of parts for a reading group, rotating the roles until each child had read the whole play. The piece would then be performed to the entire class. This approach seemed to build confidence in reading aloud as well as being enjoyable, and Donaldson stored the plays in a drawer for possible future use. Donaldson studied Drama and French at Bristol University (1967–1970), graduating with a 2:1 honours degree. During her time there she acted in departmental productions and learnt the guitar. In 1968, she and her friend Maureen Purkis took part in the play I am not the Eiffel Tower with music composed by Colin Sell, an accomplished young pianist who was studying Spanish and Portuguese at Bristol and who has gone on to appear in BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. Sell's roommate Malcolm Donaldson, a medical student who played left-handed guitar and was a keen amateur actor, came to see the show and subsequently teamed up with Sell, Donaldson and Purkis to sing in the pubs during Bristol University Rag Week in early 1969. Almost immediately after this Donaldson and Purkis were seconded to live in Paris for six months as part of their degree course where they sang and played their guitars to café audiences for money. Malcolm joined them in the summer and the trio performed various songs by the Beatles and from musicals including Hair. 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.