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

Product Information

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler started working together more than 30 years ago, on A Squash and a Squeeze. Donaldson had written the story as a song when she was in her 20s — years later she got a call from a publisher who wanted to turn the song into a children's book. She was paired up with Scheffler for the illustrations. Their second book together was The Gruffalo. No, no!” cries Donaldson, while Scheffler says simultaneously “Oh that’s a good idea!” He then ponders how he might have pulled that off, Donaldson’s objections notwithstanding: “I should have drawn one of the baddies with that [Boris Johnson] hair.” 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."

I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books. 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." Obviously every story has to have a message, otherwise it would be a bit pointless," says Donaldson, but — "I'm certainly not thinking 'Oh dear I'm so worried that children are being mean to each other, I must write a book to show that kindness can be good.' Not at all. I just hope they enjoy the story and have a good laugh." One thing Donaldson and Scheffler understand after all these years is that kids like to be scared — just not too much. 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.

Photo Gallery

I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married. When Julia’s writing, I’m like a father who is at the birth of a child. I can’t have the baby, so I’m on hand to make the tea,” Malcolm says. I get a small percentage of the sales price and of course I share that with Axel, or the other illustrators.” Still, compared with other authors, she has clearly made a lot of money. Has she enjoyed spending it? The baddies have ended up as a troll, a ghost and a witch, as well as a little girl who isn’t frightened by them at all, and I mention to Donaldson that I think it’s clever how it rightly observes that children are rarely scared by what you expect (my own son, for example was for years inexplicably terrified by the owl in The Gruffalo). “Oh that’s so true. We did a show recently where a child was not fazed at all by the dragon but was so scared of the wind.” What does she think children are looking for in a memorable picture book? “You know, you can’t generalise about young children. I have nine grandchildren and they all have different tastes. But a satisfying ending that isn’t totally predictable is important. And the language.” Donaldson has in the past talked about her concerns for today’s children, from them having to wear masks in school to the effects of social media. So I persist with my theory that perhaps The Baddies is a parable about how much resilience modern kids need to deal with the world – and she persists in batting it away: “No, no, no,” she says firmly.

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?’” 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.I feel our books are kind of timeless, and that might be some secret of their success," says Axel Scheffler. "My style is very personal and it's not fashionable or anything. So there's no trend." The spark happens when when when the pictures come together with the text in the book," explains Scheffler. "We're very different people and it's amazing that it works so well." 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.

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.It goes deeper than that. The stories should be universal, so if there is a message, it should be for anyone at any time,” she says.

Does she see books as a way for children to learn about the world around them, or an oasis in which they can escape from 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). Scheffler found his way into art by being political. “When I was growing up in Hamburg, there was the Vietnam war going on, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and there are teenage drawings of mine in which I reflected on that, so that was my formation,” he says. “Oh! I didn’t know that,” says Donaldson, turning to him in surprise. “Now I draw rabbits and mice,” he says and they look at each other and laugh.After studying drama and French at university, she busked around Europe, joined by a fellow performing enthusiast, who was, of course, Malcolm. I ask if their busking days inspired Donaldson and Scheffler’s book, Tabby McTat, about a busking cat and his shabby human, Fred. “Julia’s sister says Fred is who I’d be if I hadn’t met Julia, which I deeply resent,” Malcolm chortles. He is certainly as devoted as Fred: when Donaldson can’t remember quite when she finished writing The Baddies, Malcolm consults his diary and gives her precise start and finishing dates. A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood / The mouse saw the nut and the nut looked good,” Donaldson begins. The temperature outside is a furnace, but watching Donaldson perform her own classic, it’s impossible not to shiver with joy. 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.”