The illustrations are bright and eye catching for the children and they loved the glittery look and feel to the pictures. It was nice to have a story based underwater for a change and good for them to learn about what crabs two friends are as not all of the children had seen that type from creature before. Poor crab has lost his shell, and nobody wants to share. But when he finally finds a shell of his own, he is surprised to find himself being asked to move over! A story about sharing and friendship, this board book is both touching and amusing. One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading.

Julia Donaldson is one of today's most popular writers. Her bestselling titles include The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo's Child and Room on the Broom. Although she is best-known for her picture books, Julia also writes longer novels, plays and songs. She lives in Glasgow and spends a lot of time on stage performing her brilliant sell-out singalong shows!

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I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books. Look at the use of punctuation in the story. When have full stops, commas, questions marks, exclamation marks (etc.) been used and why?

Sharing a shell is a brightly illustrated story highlighting themes of sharing, friendship and recognising your individual strengths and characteristics. The story captured the reception class I read this to and we started to discuss sharing and kindness in friendship. The characters the story introduces shows that everyone is individual and when working as a team a lot can be achieved. How is glitter used in the illustrations? Think about the different materials that artists can use and try to use them in different ways.Sharing a Shell is a charming underwater tale of friendship and fun from the stellar picture book partnership of Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks, creators of What the Ladybird Heard. With brilliant rhythmic verse, bright and distinctive illustrations, this is a firm favourite with children and parents alike. With her 2004 picture book Sharing a Shell British children's author Julia Donaldson has a hermit crab busily searching on the beach and in tidal pools for a new home as his/her older abode is no longer big enough. And upon finding a new and suitably spacious shell in which to live, a sea anemone comes along and asks to share the hermit crab's new place of residence with the promise to protect the crab (and of course also the shell) from predators, and then a passing bristleworm also asks, offering to keep the shell clean ad tidy in return (and with the crab quite readily agreeing to basically having two permanent roommates). But after a period of time a bigger shell is once again needed, and while at first the hermit carb, sea anemone and bristleworm squabble amongst themselves and end up going their separate ways, at the end of Sharing a Shell, the bristleworm finds a new and larger shell, and crab, sea anemone and bristleworm once again move in together. I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.