the gruffalo by julia donaldson and axel scheffler

Like Lennon and McCartney, the two occasionally work on books separately, but the real magic happens when they come together, and their books inspire the ubiquitous stage shows, the now near-traditional BBC Christmas Day adaptations and the endless merchandise. To put that into perspective, a Donaldson book is sold every 11 seconds in the UK, and the vast majority are illustrated by Scheffler. Their collaborations include immortal classics like The Snail and the Whale, Room on the Broom, Zog and – of course – The Gruffalo, which helped to make Donaldson the biggest-selling author of any age group in the last decade. Not since Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake have a writer and illustrator been more fruitfully matched, with Donaldson’s clever and warm rhymes brought to life by Scheffler’s detail-packed colourful pictures. The Baddies is Donaldson and Scheffler’s first book since 2019’s The Smeds and the Smoos, and it is – at Donaldson’s conservative estimation – their 25th together. “Well, the holiday was booked … ” Scheffler murmurs apologetically.Īn illustration from The Baddies by Donaldson and Scheffler. He admires how her garden has grown since the start of Covid, she joshes him about him being “too busy” to make the forthcoming celebrations for her and her husband Malcolm’s 50th wedding anniversary. “And that one’s John.” Scheffler, as solemn as Donaldson is sunny, makes the brief nod of one who has heard about the fish many times before, but is still quietly amused by them.Įver since their first book together, A Squash and a Squeeze, was published in 1993, the two have been explaining to their millions upon millions of readers that they don’t actually work alongside each other: she writes the books in Sussex, he then does the illustrations from his home in Richmond, London. “There’s Swampy,” smiles Donaldson, pointing to a fat fish flapping past. J ulia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler – the John Lennon and Paul McCartney of children’s publishing – are sitting in Donaldson’s garden in West Sussex on one of the hottest days of the year, gazing into her fish pond.

The gruffalo by julia donaldson and axel scheffler