Pippa Goodhart - Interview (July 2026)
Q: We ask this to all authors - what was your best school visit, and why?
There have been so many visits, wonderful and memorable for different reasons. On one school visit a blizzard was raging. I got recruited to be the person on the end of the phone fielding calls from parents asking if they should bring children to school or not. Then I did a big shared storytime of books from my bag with the group of children of a mix of ages who were in school. That was followed by building snowmen in the playground, and then hot chocolate and freshly baked biscuits from the school kitchens. Bliss! But the more ordinary school visits can be just as magical. There’s nothing better than reading a story, and feeling the whole class of children going totally quiet and focussed as they listen. Then maybe a pause in silence for a moment once they story finishes … followed by laughter and questions. Best of all is when a teacher says something like, ‘Did you notice that boy at the back in a green jumper? He’s never voluntarily put his hand up to say anything ever before, and yet he did today, and with a really good question or idea.’ That’s special.
Q: How do you decide if a story idea belongs to Pippa or Laura (a pseudonym)?
Ah, that Laura Owen pseudonym wasn’t my choice. The writer of the original Winnie the Witch books, and ongoing writer of the Winnie picture books, Valerie Thomas, specified that my name on the Winnie the Witch storybooks should be Laura Owen. I’ve never found out why. There are a few clues in some of those Laura Owen storybooks as to my true identity! All my other books are under my real name.
Q: Your iconic You Choose series has sold over a million copies. What is the most surprising aspect of having such a well known book?
They’ve actually sold over two and a half million copies now! We’re coming up to a quarter of a century since the first You Choose book was published after being rejected by a whole lot of publishers who couldn’t see how a book that didn’t tell a story could work. The success that has built over the decades is all a surprise to me, but most surprising of all was to have little You Choose books given away in millions of McDonald’s Happy Meals last year!
Q: On your website, you mention a childhood memory of seeing Edith Nesbit’s (author of The Railway Children) grave at St Mary’s Bay and mistaking a moving mole for a skeleton! Have you ever put that memory into a book?
Not yet. Perhaps I should!
Q: You've written over 160 books. When you experience a bout of writer's block, what is your go-to method for rediscovering your momentum?
I always have a number of writing projects on the go at the same time. So, if I’m stuck on a novel, for instance, an afternoon spent playing with a picture book text can give me the break that lets me return to the novel with a fresh eye. I do a lot of dog walking and playing with small grandchildren and meeting up with friends and cooking meals, all of them effectively mini holidays from work. That kind of relaxing busily usually shifts work blocks.
Q: If you had to step inside the world of one of your own books - not as the author, but as a character - which book would you choose to live in?
A really interesting question. I’m going to choose the colourful fun delicious world of Mrs Kapoor, her animals and neighbours as imaged by wonderful illustrator Lizzie Finlay in my Chapatti Moon picture book.
Q: You teach adults who want to write for children. What is one misconception aspiring children’s authors often have before taking your course?
I expect anybody reading this will be able to guess that. It’s the assumption some people have that writing something short and simple must be easy to write. They forget that those short simple sentences need to impart a really good story, or they really aren’t worth reading. Creating such a worthwhile story is hard.
Q: You’ve run workshops with dyslexic and disabled children - what did those sessions teach you about storytelling?
That stories can be invented and experienced and shared in so many ways beyond writing them down and reading them.
Q: You’ve lived in Cambridgeshire for many years. How has that landscape or community influenced your writing?
I grew-up in the village where I now live once again. I spent time living in Leeds and Durham, and then had twenty-six years living in Leicester. It’s been nice to come ‘home’ in recent years. I celebrated that return by writing my historical novel, The Great Sea Dragon Discovery, set in my home village in 1860. The place I knew so well from childhood exploration and familiarity was at that time being dug for coprolites, and fossils were found and studied at Cambridge University. So my child character finds a special fossil … at the same time as needing to save his family and friends in life or death adventure.
Q: You’ve seen children’s publishing evolve over decades. What recent change in the industry do you find most exciting - or most concerning?
Let’s start with the concerning. Use of AI to generate books, and then feed on those same texts for future reference, is inevitably going to lead to diminishing story ideas and expression being published. But the exciting modern development I notice very strongly is the production of more and more beautiful books. Books with textured pages and covers, silken book marks, sprayed edges, novelty extras, and such very, very skilled illustrations. Books are where the youngest children often meet the very best art, and that is wonderful.
Q: If you could choose one of your lesser-known books to be rediscovered by a new generation of readers, which would it be and why?
Another question that makes me really think! I’m going to say my picture book, Fair Shares, illustrated by lovely Anna Doherty, sadly now out of print. Why do I choose that one? Because fairer sharing is very much what our world needs.
Q: There was a feature on the morning news about how schools are combating smartphone addiction in children. It made me reflect on your own school experience, detailed on your website. The difference between the two eras is profound - is this contrast something you might ever weave into a book? And what are you working on today?
My village school experience was, with hindsight, very basic in terms of facilities and equipment. But it was rich in experiences, looking at Nature on the meadows around us, clay modelling with clay dug from the hole made by workmen laying pipes down the road, seeing dust from the actual moon brought back from that first landing on the moon. Elements of those experiences have appeared in various stories. Mobile phones tend to need to get lost or broken before more modern child characters can fall into the danger necessary for adventure! More You Choose books, both picture books and board books. An exciting new non-fiction book of intriguing questions with no clear answers, Questions, Questions, coming out with a new publisher for me. And I’m trying to write an anthropomorphic middle grade adventure story, which is something I’ve never done before. I don’t know if it’ll ever reach publication. Fingers crossed!