27 Aug Happy Pub Day, Goodnight Star!
Hurray! Today is the day when a certain star is sent out into the world to shine. Big thanks, as always, to my agent, Julia Churchill, and Joe Marriott and the team at Random House for their help in creating the book. And special sparkly thanks to Jane Massey for creating such beautiful pictures and bringing the story to life.
‘The Goodnight Star‘ has a rather personal story behind it. I love the stars. I have so many happy memories of stars…stargazing as a little girl, looking for the one which always shone the brightest…watching shooting stars with my friends up on the South Downs…my dad stopping the car as he drove me back to university and the two of us standing together, speechless at the sky…sleeping in the Sahara Desert with just the stars for cover, feeling so small but so secure…
My children have shared this love of stars. When my daughter was two years old, we made a night-time picture together. She decided to put a star sticker on the door of a house in the picture and we had a lovely discussion about what would happen if a star came into our house. If you’re wondering why the star sticker is no longer on the door, it’s because the star couldn’t stay in the house, of course…And so ‘The Goodnight Star’ was born.
It tells the story of a little girl, Megan, who is scared of the dark, and of a special star which helps her overcome her fear. It also explains why that one star shines brightest in all the sky…the very star that I would look for every night, all those years ago.
