When I started writing and illustrating, I knew little of classic children's literature. My stories came from real life, from my concerns about what was happening in the world.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I came from a family of incredible storytellers, but I didn't start writing children's books until I was 41 years old.
I was hugely formed by stories I was told as a child whether that was in a book, the cinema, theatre or television and probably television more than any medium is what influenced me as a child and formed my response to literature, story-telling and, therefore, the world around me.
Although I could read before I went to school, and I won the school reading prize at five years old, my early children's stories came from the radio and watching films at a cinema on Saturday mornings in Australia. It wasn't until I was nine years old on a ship returning from Australia that I was introduced to children's books.
As a child, I loved story books and wanted to be in them so desperately and live the stories.
Storybooks were always a big part of my imagination, and my childhood and adolescence.
My childhood was surrounded by books and writing. From a very early age I was fascinated by storytelling, by the printed word, by language, by ideas. So I would seek them out.
One of the reasons I began to write was because I wanted stories for my children where the characters spoke as they did and had similar life experiences.
I have written, probably, more books for children than any other writer, from story-books to plays, and can claim to know more about interesting children than most.
Fiction came quite a while later. I began with short stories and fiction for children.
I began writing fictional stories and little screenplays when I was in fifth grade.