About
I was quite slow to learn to read, but I got there in the end and books have been a big part of my life ever since.
When I was growing up, I used to love staying in bed on a Saturday morning with a book. It was my own private world. No tests to take, no matches to play, nobody to impress – just me and Mildred Hubble, or maybe a hobbit, or Charlie Bucket, or the Wakefield Twins.
I also loved to write. The first story I stapled into a book was about a slug-witch who plots to cover the world with slime but is thwarted by two clever French beetles. Don’t ask me how I came up with that one!
Later on, at school and then university I discovered the thrill of reading stories in other languages. Eventually, I became a university lecturer in French literature and, for fifteen years or so, wrote about some wonderful French language books (including one composed entirely without the letter E!)
But the itch to write stories of my own remained. So along came Biff, the ballet-dancing star of my first book for children, Dogs don’t do ballet. Since that time there have been rebel princesses, rock-n-roll monsters, purple rhinos, ice-age mammoths, mermaids, moles, and a whole forest-load of fairies!
I feel extremely lucky to write books for children (the best readers of all), and my greatest hope is that my stories bring joy and refuge, and that you might even be tempted to curl up under the duvet with them on a Saturday morning.
Anna x
