It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did.

One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. 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. “We want a song about throwing crumpled-up wrapping paper into the bin” was a typical request from the BBC. I became an expert at writing to order on such subjects as guinea pigs, window-cleaning and horrible smells. The busking led to a career in singing and songwriting, mainly for children’s television. I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.īefore Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country the best one was in Italian about pasta. A wind-up gramophone wafted out Chopin waltzes. Mary and I were always creating imaginary characters and mimicking real ones, and I used to write shows and choreograph ballets for us. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him). 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. Now available in a cased board book format, perfect for introducing Detective Nell to younger children!' Written by the brilliant Julia Donaldson and stunningly illustrated by the multi-talented illustrator and printmaker Sara Ogilvie, The Detective Dog is a fast-paced celebration of books, reading, libraries, and the relationship between a little boy and his rather special dog. and Detective Dog Nell is ready to sniff out the culprit! So who better to have on hand when they arrive one morning to discover that the school's books have all disappeared! Who could have taken them? And why? There's only one dog for the job. Every Monday she goes to school with Peter and listens to children read. Whether it's finding a lost shoe or discovering who did a poo on the new gravel path, her ever-sniffing nose is always hard at work. Peter's dog Nell has an amazing sense of smell. She was known far and wide as Detective Dog Nell.

' There once was a dog with a keen sense of smell.

The detective dog book