Cape Town - Some of the languages Julia Donaldson’s A Squash And A Squeeze were translated into were Swedish, Danish, Afrikaans and isiZulu.
“I used to go to schools and get out this book… and say ‘now I’m going to tell you a story’,” she starts telling the story.
Donaldson would read phonetically out of a different version and the children would stare quizzically. “What? Oh no. They said they were going to make my story into a book. What’s happened?” she would ask and the conversation would start as they suggested everything from “it’s English” (a remark she’d get in Scotland) to “it’s a printing mistake” and, eventually “it’s another language”.
Today the cross cultural appeal of the British Children’s Laureate’s (2011-2013) many children’s books is evinced by the number of languages they have been translated into. The Gruffalo was recently translated into 70.
In most places Donaldson interacts with children from British or international schools, but she likes how more inclusive the audience will be in South Africa.
“In Germany we act out the stories in German and I think the German children and adults were really good at concentrating.”
“Hearty applause and very good concentration levels compared to, I hate to say it, the British.
“I found in Canada the children were much more reluctant to volunteer. Usually back home everyone’s going ‘me, me’.
“In Canada they must have just had a big ‘don’t go with a stranger’ campaign because we just couldn’t get children to volunteer.
“And, that’s part of our stage show, we need children to volunteer. We need them because we haven’t enough actors to act out all the parts.”
She, husband Malcolm Donaldson, Scholastic UK editor Alison Green and Macmillan’s Alyx Price use puppetry, dress up, storytelling and songs on stage and constantly change stories and methods from place to place.
Any misgivings Donaldson had about singing The Stick Man’s song when performing for Triggerfish Animation Studios’ animators and their children were quickly squashed when the animators sang louder than the performers.
“I hadn’t taken into account that they’d been working on it for a year, they knew every word,” she smiled.
Triggerfish handled the animation for The Stick Man for British producers Magic Light.
The animated story debuted on BBC1 on Christmas Day and will play at the forthcoming Cape Town International Animation Festival.
Watching a recent The Stick Man preview, Donaldson found herself watching one of her grandchildren who didn’t move a muscle throughout the 30-minute short film.
Having grandchildren has changed how the 67-year-old approaches her work because it reminded her of what is necessary when reading to one child rather than an audience.
For a long time, after her children had grown up, she was writing her books as poems and not necessarily a story for a specific audience.
She recalls her then 10-month-old granddaughter’s fascination with playing “peekaboo” and seeing pictures of other babies.
“So I thought, ‘right, I’m going to write a very simple baby book which is a song which will have big flaps and behind the flaps will be pictures of babies pointing, waving and clapping’.
“And for some reason that book has taken years because she is five now and it’s just about to come out.”
It’s A Little Baby is illustrated by Rebecca Cobb who also illustrated Donaldson’s The Paper Dolls.
“Some picture books are so subtle and sophisticated… I’m not saying I don’t write for adults too because I think secretly I want the adults to enjoy them and like them too… but you can go too far. Probably it’s grounded me a bit more, having the grandchildren.”
She has just seen Axel Scheffler’s illustrations of her Zog sequel, Zog And The Flying Doctors, and another book to look out for later this year will be The Detective Dog, illustrated by Sara Ogilvie.
While she doesn’t always use Scheffler as the illustrator, many of Donaldson’s award-winning works have drawn on his drawing talents, but she insists the books do not take place in the same world.
“The only slightly confusing thing, it’s a joke now, but Axel puts a gruffalo in… like in Tiddler there’s a gruffalo fish, in Zog the knight has a gruffalo on his shield or something, so there’s that little joke of ‘can you spot the gruffalo’.
“It’s Axel’s joke… it’s not like Narnia or Terry Pratchett’s world (building).”
“He’s only done it since maybe The Snail And The Whale, it certainly wasn’t in the earlier books.”
Theresa Smith, Cape Argus