Happy Birthday . . . to books!

Well, these took a while, but they're finally here: Happy Birthday to you, Princess and Happy Birthday to You, Pirate are now in book stores.

In 2016 my editor at HarperCollins spotted that the rights to the song, Happy Birthday had finally come into the public domain. She asked me to write some books, essentially as 'party bag' items for very young children who love those traditional party themes: princesses, pirates, superheroes . . . you know the kind of thing.

'There's a troll in your sled! There's a pea in your bed!' - Vicki Gausden's lovely art.

They lined up Vicki Gausden to illustrate them - and I'm very
glad they did. Vicki's style is super cute and very appealing.

​We worked on these a long time ago, so they feel a long way
away from the sort of books Vicki and I are working on now -
but they're very sweet, nonetheless!

​​I wanted the books to be fun and silly - the squashed tomatoes
and stew kind of birthday song rather than anything too
​sickly sweet.

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​They were a great deal of fun to write. It helped that, at the time of writing the books, my daughter was bang on target audience. She was a princess addict when she was small.

I'm very glad to confirm that this kind of role playing is just that - a short-lived bit of make believe and fun. She's seven now and not into dressing up. Not as a princess, nor a pirate, nor a doctor, which was always my particular favourite. Now she's getting into fashion. Heaven help me! 

My daughter - not the most conventional princess.

My kids were so small back then! I miss the dressing up days.