I really enjoy getting the children in the audience to help me act out the stories and sing the songs.

The Baddies by Julia Donaldson | WHSmith The Baddies by Julia Donaldson | WHSmith

Each individual attempt was met with a surprise act from their neighbor, and the results was complete failure by the baddies. I was very interested to see a ghost on the cover and throughout who bares resemblance with Marley’s Ghost from Dickens’ famous tale - I think it’s amazing that when the young children come across A Christmas Carol (which the majority in England will due to the GCSE spec) they might recognise the ghost after having The Baddies as a staple household item. 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.I was intrigued to see that the Ghost was very much drawn in the style of Jacob Marley from Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'. When a little girl moves into a nearby cottage, the Baddies can’t wait to scare her out of her wits. The baddies devise different ways to scare her but are unsuccessful as she shows them kindness and understanding. You have to understand that when I see a new Julia Donaldson picture book, I'm am fully prepared to be blown away by her story. I liked this book - the rhymes and rhythms were almost consistent - a few areas where the scansion didn't work for me.

The Baddies by Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler | Waterstones The Baddies by Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler | Waterstones

The brand-new picture book from superstar author and illustrator Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler is a riot of slapstick fun and silliness. Famous for her use of rhyming verse, Julia Donaldson CBE is one of the most popular children's authors of our time and it's easy to see why. Julia and Axel are the team that have created picture book favourites such as The Gruffalo, Stick Man, Zog and Highway Rat - all of which have been made into animated films premiering on BBC1 Christmas Day.

When reading it to my son, it was hard to make it interesting and it did not captivate him in the way her books usually do. The drawings as ever are full of characterful mischief and children will find much to see in them - a Gruffalo lurking on a page, for example. The witch, troll, and ghost are more silly than scary, making this an ideal Halloween read-aloud for the early elementary grades. 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. My only question is why are the endpapers purple with white polka dots, when the handkerchief that was the main element in the story was blue with white polka dots?

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

One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. But the little girl quickly shows them that you don’t have to be big to be brave, and baddies don’t always win. I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.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.