Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. Known for her leading roles in films encompassing a variety of genres, she has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. The films in which she has starred have collectively grossed over $3.9 billion globally, making her one of Hollywood's most bankable stars. After an early breakthrough with appearances in Mystic Pizza (1988) and Steel Magnolias (1989), Roberts established herself as a leading actress when she headlined the top-grossing romantic comedy Pretty Woman (1990).
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka.
The Velveteen Rabbit is a British children's book written by Margery Williams and illustrated by William Nicholson. It chronicles the story of a stuffed rabbit's desire to become real through the love of his owner. The story was first published in Harper's Bazaar in 1921 featuring illustrations from Williams' daughter Pamela Bianco. It was published as a book in 1922 and has been republished many times since.
The Prince of Egypt is a 1998 American animated musical drama film produced by DreamWorks Animation and released by DreamWorks Pictures. The first feature film from DreamWorks to be traditionally animated, it is an adaptation of the first fourteen chapters of the Book of Exodus and follows the life of Moses from being a prince of Egypt to a prophet of the Lord, chosen by God to carry out his ultimate destiny of leading the Hebrews out of Egypt. The film was directed by Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, and Simon Wells, and produced by Jeffrey Katzenberg, Penney Finkelman Cox, and Sandra Rabins, from a screenplay written by Philip LaZebnik. It features songs written by Stephen Schwartz and a score composed by Hans Zimmer. The film stars the voices of Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover, Patrick Stewart, Helen Mirren, Steve Martin, and Martin Short.
Julia Anne Sweeney is an American actress, comedian, and author. Sweeney gained fame as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1990 to 1994. She played Mrs. Keeper in the film Stuart Little and voiced Brittany in Father of the Pride. She recently appeared in the Hulu series Shrill, the Showtime series Work in Progress, and the Starz series American Gods.
Josie Lawrence is an English actress and comedian. She is best known for her work with the Comedy Store Players improvisational troupe, the television series Whose Line Is It Anyway? and as Manda Best in EastEnders.
The Story of Ferdinand (1936) is the best-known work by the American author Munro Leaf. Illustrated by Robert Lawson, the children's book tells the story of a bull who would rather smell flowers than fight in bullfights. He sits in the middle of the bull ring failing to take heed of any of the provocations of the matador and others to fight. The Story of Ferdinand was published in 1936 by Viking Books. Later, after the Spanish Civil War, it was viewed as having a political agenda. During World War II, the British Air Transport Auxiliary started flying into Europe after D-Day and their pilots, who were non-combatants, used Ferdinand the Bull as their call sign. The book has been adapted into two films, the 1938 animated short Ferdinand the Bull and the 2017 computer-animated feature film Ferdinand.
The Gruffalo is a British children's picture book by author Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. It tells the story of a mouse taking a walk in the woods and deceiving different predators, including the Gruffalo. The Gruffalo was first published in 1999 in the United Kingdom by Macmillan Children's Books. It is about 700 words long and is written in rhyming couplets featuring repetitive verse. It is an example of a trickster story and was inspired by a Chinese folk tale called "The Fox that Borrows the Terror of a Tiger". The Gruffalo has sold over 13.5 million copies and has won several prizes for children's literature including the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.
Julia Catherine Donaldson is an English writer and playwright, and the 2011–2013 Children's Laureate. She is best known for her popular rhyming stories for children, especially those illustrated by Axel Scheffler, which include The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom and Stick Man. She originally wrote songs for children's television but has concentrated on writing books since the words of one of her songs, "A Squash and a Squeeze", were made into a children's book in 1993. Of her 184 published works, 64 are widely available in bookshops. The remaining 120 are intended for school use and include her Songbirds phonic reading scheme, which is part of the Oxford University Press's Oxford Reading Tree.
Coraline is a 2009 American stop-motion animated dark fantasy horror film written and directed by Henry Selick, based on Neil Gaiman's novella of the same name. Produced by LAIKA, as the studio's first feature film, it features the voice talents of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith David, John Hodgman, Robert Bailey Jr., and Ian McShane. The musical score is by Bruno Coulais. The film tells the story of its eponymous character discovering an idealized alternate universe behind a secret door in her new home, unaware that it contains something dark and sinister.
Nick Sharratt is a British author and illustrator of children's books, whose work is split between illustrating for writers, most notably Jacqueline Wilson from 1991 to 2021, and Jeremy Strong, but also Giles Andreae, Julia Donaldson and Michael Rosen. He was chosen to be the official illustrator for World Book Day 2006, and has illustrated around 250 books, including over 50 books by Wilson, among them The Lottie Project, Little Darlings and The Story of Tracy Beaker which was the most borrowed library book in the UK for the first decade of the 21st century. The books on which Sharratt and Wilson have collaborated have sold more than 40 million copies in the UK and sales of picture books illustrated by Sharratt exceed 10 million.
Adjoa Aiboom Helen Andoh HonFRSL is a British actress. On stage, she has played lead roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre and the Almeida Theatre. On television, she appeared in two series of Doctor Who as Francine Jones, 90 episodes of the BBC's long-running medical drama Casualty, and BBC's EastEnders. Andoh made her Hollywood debut in autumn 2009, starring as Nelson Mandela's Chief of Staff Brenda Mazibuko alongside Morgan Freeman as Mandela in Clint Eastwood's drama film Invictus. Since 2020, she portrays Lady Danbury in the Netflix Regency romance series Bridgerton. In July 2022, Andoh became an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
James Robertson is a Scottish writer who grew up in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire. He is the author of several short story and poetry collections, and has published seven novels: The Fanatic, Joseph Knight, The Testament of Gideon Mack, And the Land Lay Still, The Professor of Truth, and To Be Continued… and News of the Dead. The Testament of Gideon Mack was long-listed for the 2006 Man Booker Prize.
Harold and the Purple Crayon is a 1955 children's picture book written and illustrated by Crockett Johnson. Published by Harper Collins Publishers, it is Johnson's most popular book, and has led to a series of other related books, as well as many adaptations. The story is written in third-person point-of-view, and follows a young boy on an imaginative adventure through the night.
The Gruffalo's Child is a British children's picture book by writer and playwright Julia Donaldson, and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. It is the bestselling sequel to The Gruffalo and won the 2005 National Book Awards Children's Book of the Year. The book has been adapted into theatrical productions since 2005 and was adapted into the 2011 animated film The Gruffalo's Child.
The Gruffalo is a 2009 short computer-animated television film based on the 1999 picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler.
Magic Light Pictures is an English London-based independent production company, which produces film and television.
Room on the Broom is a 2012 short stop motion computer animated television film based on the picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. The film was nominated for the Best Animated Short Film at the 2014 Academy Awards. It also won the British Academy Children's Award for Animation in 2013.
The Snail and the Whale is a 2003 children's picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. It won the 2004 Early Years award for the best pre-school book, the 2005 Blue Peter award for Best Book to Read Aloud, and the 2007 Giverny award for Best Science Picture Book. The Snail and the Whale has also been adapted into an unabridged audiobook, a stage play and translated into British Sign Language. In 2019, a short film based on the book was released.
Stick Man, written by former Children's Laureate Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, is a children's story about an anthropomorphic wooden stick who becomes separated from his family home and his Odyssey-like adventure to return there. He is eventually reunited with his family in the "family tree" as a result of his interaction with Father Christmas. It takes place in England.
