The Baddies: a wickedly funny picture book from the creators of The Gruffalo

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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.

Julia Donaldson has written some of the world's best-loved children's books, including modern classics The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child, which together have sold over 25 million copies worldwide and have been translated into over one hundred languages. Julia also writes fiction, including the Princess Mirror-Belle series, illustrated by Lydia Monks, as well as poems, plays and songs – and her brilliant live shows are always in demand.Your child will giggle their way through this comic tale of three very bad, silly, and completely hopeless storybook characters who dare each other to steal a hanky-chief from a young girl walking through their woods. Brief summary: A troll, ghost, and witch are baddies who enjoy being bad and bragging about it. A girl moves into a nearby cottage. The baddies devise different ways to scare her but are unsuccessful as she shows them kindness and understanding.

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). 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.The Baddies are the meanest, nastiest ghost, witch and troll in the land. They just adore being bad, and fight over who is the worst. Of course, the little mouse saves the day and rids the woods of our pesky villains, and we all sleep more soundly at night. Published just in time for Halloween, I had great hopes for this story featuring a ghost and a witch (and a troll).

I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs. 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. I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.With Julia Donaldson’s (author of The Gruffalo) trademark quirky humour and rhyming text and Axel Scheffler’s detailed illustrations, there are lots of fun things to spot as you read and reread the text.