The Baddies: the wickedly funny picture book from the creators of Zog and Stick Man, now available in paperback!

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It’s not difficult to see elements of Donaldson’s own story in her work. Born into a bohemian family in Hampstead, north London, she grew up in a home that she, her parents and sister shared with her grandmother, uncle and aunt. Her parents encouraged her and her sister “to absolutely be ourselves”, and Donaldson wrote musical versions of fairytales, which the four of them would perform for the extended family. To this day, she thinks of herself as a “performer-author”, and she and Malcolm frequently put on shows of her books; at the time of our interview, they are preparing for a performance at the Edinburgh festival. I ask Scheffler if his and his German-French family’s lives have changed much in Britain since Brexit. “Not so much on a day-to-day basis, but I look at the quality of politicians in this country and it’s incredible. In Germany, it would be unthinkable to have such incompetent, cynical and corrupt people in government. Sorry, I’m getting political,” he says.

Though, she admits, she's running out of creatures for Scheffler to draw. "I do think sometimes about gargoyles or a sphinx or something," she says. "It's getting harder and harder, actually."

Why? It’s because she gets to marry her husband Malcolm all over again. She plays Betty O’Barley (“I give her an Irish accent”) and he plays Harry O’Hay, the scarecrow whose love is threatened by the arrival of the dastardly Reginald Drake. “I like it because it’s got that Hollywood love triangle.” 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. When a little girl moves into a nearby cottage, the Baddies can’t wait to scare her out of her wits. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin.

You’ll have to ask the pig, I’m not responsible for my characters!” laughs Scheffler, and Donaldson nods: “It’s nice when children see things in the books I’m not aware of. You know they’re really looking at them.” He tends to read things out loud in what we call his Dylan Thomas voice, this sort of cod Welsh accent, and it always sounds quite good when he does it.”

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). In The Baddies, the witch, the troll and the ghost come a cropper when a little girl refuses to be scared by them. Although it’s never mentioned in the story, she is of south Asian heritage. Is this the first time they’ve featured a non-caucasian main character? What I like about Julia's text is the subtlety of her messaging," says Scheffler. The Baddies is about kindness, and how being good is better than being bad at the end of the day. But mostly, it's just supposed to be fun. She always replies to children’s letters. “And they haven’t changed over the decades. It’s always the usual mix of ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ to ‘Why do you wear such funny shoes?’ I love it, because adults are probably dying to ask about my shoes but they just say, ‘Are you inspired by Tolkien?’” For his part, Scheffler says he prefers to draw fairy tale stories and fantastical creatures. "I find it easier to illustrate a story like that," he says. "I don't think I'm very good at observing the everyday, modern life."