Julia Donaldson joins Vernon for Tracks Of My Years

Britain's bestselling author, Julia Donaldson, is Vernon's guest for Tracks Of My Years all this week in the build up to World Book Day, selecting the ten songs that have soundtracked her life so far.

Julia is the brilliant writer behind an incredibly successful series of children's books, including The Gruffalo, Stick Man, Zog, Room on the Broom, The Smeds and the Smoos and many more. Her books have sold more than 50 million copies and have been translated into over a hundred languages and dialects across the world.

Born in 1948 and raised in north London, Julia was creative from a young age; inspired to write and perform after her father gave her the collection A Book of 1,000 Poems. At just 12, she landed an understudy role in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Bristol Old Vic alongside a young Judi Dench. She studied drama in Bristol and met her future husband Malcolm in 1969 when spending a summer in Paris. Together with other friends, they busked all over Europe, including performing songs that Julia would write. Back in the UK, she began writing music for children's television in the 70s, and it was this that led to her first book. A publisher asked Julia if she was interested in turning one of her songs into a book – ‘A Squash and a Squeeze’ was then published in 1993. In 1999, she published The Gruffalo, inspired by a Chinese folk tale. It's become a well-loved classic and was followed by the sequel, The Gruffalo's Child, in 2004. Together, the two books have sold 18.2 million copies in 115 languages and dialects. Many of Julia's books have also been adapted into animations by the BBC, most recently The Scarecrows' Wedding at Christmas.

Elsewhere on the show, Vernon dives into the BBC Archive for Vernon's Vault, and two listeners take on the mid-morning music quiz Ten To The Top.

A BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 2.