For children’s novelist Julia Donaldson a stick is not just a stick – it’s a whole new world of imagination. Here she talks about her inspiration as a stage version of her tale, Stick Man, comes to Kent.

The Gruffalo’s Child has a little stick doll and that set me thinking about sticks...

And how they can become so many different things. I remembered how when my sons were little they would play with sticks and they would be everything. I thought about how a stick can be lots of different things. So it can become the mast of a sand castle, a stick for a dog, a bat for a bat-and-ball game.

I did think about putting Stick Man in different houses like that of the Three Little Pigs...

And whether I wanted Stick Man to be a little more active and not so passive as lots of things happen to him rather than him making them happen.

I tend to plan a book in my head and I can’t really start until I have an end...

I knew from very early on that I wanted to get Stick Man back to his tree and I needed someone to do that. I liked the idea of him being dropped into the tree and the obvious person to do that was Santa Claus. The story reflects the changes in the seasons, though – it’s not just a Christmas story.

I first did Stick Man at a book festival...

The characters were puppets. So my sister and I were there with our hands filled with Stick Lady Love and the stick children three and we got to the bit where Santa drops Stick Man and there was a real gasp from the audience. When we heard that gasp in just the right place we knew we had it right.

It was actually me who approached Scamp Theatre...

Initially we were talking about a show that brought together a selection of my books. Having seen how Scamp work and the way the children responded to their theatre, I was confident they would do something very imaginative. Their theatre is very physical and they are inventive with props so I knew they would do lots of interesting things with it.

The fact that the book is already popular encourages people to go and see it...

And a lot of the children who go do so because they know the book. But I think it is different when you have a school group go and see it as not all of those children will have read it. And so it brings new children to the story.

What matters is that children have the opportunity to experience that pleasure of reading a book...

The whole experience of theatre is also something magical – especially for children who have not been to the theatre before. I went to the theatre to see Where the Rainbow Ends as a child and that is something I still remember. That memory and that experience of theatre will stay with them for ever.

DETAILS

Stick Man will be at The Orchard Theatre in Dartford, on Tuesday, September 13. For tickets call 01322 220000 or visit orchardtheatre.co.uk

The show will also be at the Woodville in Gravesend on Wednesday, November 9. For tickets call 08442 439 480 or visit woodville.seatlive.com

JULIA DONALDSON’S BOOKS

Bringing imagination to life is something author Julia Donaldson has done for the past 20 years.

With Axel Scheffler’s illustrations, she came to writing children’s books in her mid-40s, with her first book A Squash And A Squeeze and has since published more than 100 books, plays, songs, musicals and poems, including The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child, Wriggle and Roar!, Room on the Broom and One Ted Falls Out of Bed. She was Children’s Laureate from 2011-13.

Stick Man was published in 2009 and has now been turned into a stage play with Scamp Theatre and Watford Palace Theatre.

The story began as a simple idea – that a stick is more than a stick. What sparked the book was an image created by Axel, with the Gruffalo’s Child holding a stick doll.

The story centres on Stick Man, who lives in the family tree with his Stick Lady Love and their stick children three. When he decides to ventures outside, he quickly discovers that being a stick makes him a very attractive toy and tool for lots of different people and animals. Taken on a whirlwind adventure, all he really wants is to be back home in his family tree.