Two of Scotland’s leading children’s authors, Julia Donaldson & Catherine Forde, came to St Andrew’s High School to talk to S1 & S2 pupils about their books. Julia is best known as Britain’s best-selling picture book writer but came along to discuss her first foray into writing a ‘teen’ novel, Running on the Cracks. She and Catherine both discussed where they find their inspiration for characters and storylines and the pupils got a chance to ask them questions. During her talk Catherine gave the audience an example of how she used a horrific incident that occurred outside her husband’s shop as inspiration for the start of her current book, Sugarcoated. Julia involved the pupils in acting out scenes from her novel to help illustrate the different characters in the story. It’s fair to say both authors went down really well and it’s only a pity there wasn’t more time for discussion at the end of the sessions.

Julia also came along to Gavinburn Library in the afternoon to entertain primary 3 children from Gavinburn primary with some of her fabulous songs and picture books.

• Slideshow of Julia Donaldson and Catherine Forde at St Andrew's High, Clydebank
• Slideshow of Julia Donaldson in Gavinburn Library