Thousands of children, aged between five and ten, (sometimes even older) have been enjoying my Kitty books since the first one I DON'T WANT TO! was published in 1985.

Shall I tell you how the Kitty stories started ?

Well the secret is out: the famous Kitty is my own little girl. I say 'is' but of course that's not true. She 'is' and she 'isn't' - because writers may be inspired by something or someone in real life, but then we make things up. So the Kitty in the stories is a lot like my Kitty when she was little, but she's also meant to be like all other children - boys as well as girls - who love the Kitty stories. I mean, we ALL don't want to do things, and we all lose things, and we all think things aren't fair - don't we?

Whether we're rich or poor, tall or short, black or white, English or Polish, or whatever .... whether we live with two parents, or one, or a grandmother, or whoever ... whether we inhabit a cottage, a flat, or a castle in Scotland, or wherever ... we still have things in common, like feeling fed up if someone breaks a promise, or feeling scared of the dark, or of other people. Do you know what I mean? I bet Prince Charles asks Why Me? every day.

This is how I wrote my very first Kitty story.

When Kitty was little she was jealous when I gave her Dad a book for Christmas. It wasn't a proper book, it was a bundle of typed pages - my very first novel. Jonathan had been trying to persuade me to stop being a journalist and write stories, and so when he went away for six weeks I wrote my first novel The Windsurf Boy, and gave it to him for Christmas. He was so pleased - but little Kitty was watching.
'It's not fair - I want you to write me a book!', she said.

So I wrote the first story about this naughty little girl called Kitty not wanting to clean her teeth. She liked it, so I wrote another story .... then before I knew it there were eight stories, all about her not wanting to do things.
Hey presto! I Don't Want To! was the first Kitty book.
I wasn't going to write another, but when it was published I got so many letters and sold many copies I thought I had better continue with Kitty's adventures. So I wrote I Can't Find It!

I was going to stop there, then after number five, then after number ten. Now there are eleven Kitty books, and although they aren't numbered it's good to read them more or less in the order they were written, so that you really get to know Kitty, her family and friends.

'Now there are twelve books with Kitty as the heroine, all of them numbered so that you can follow the adventures of Kitty, her family and friends. Now I am writing a new book of stories, but this one is about Kitty's friends - and will take you into their lives, while our favourite Kitty just has a walk-on role. A little bit different....but won't it be interesting to find out what William and Rosie (for example) and actually thinking? So - watch out for 'Kitty's Friends' next year. In the mean time you can have fun with 'Kitty's Big Ideas' on those rainy days!