When I visit schools, I try to reach kids who perhaps don't have books at home or aren't that keen on reading. Somehow you draw them in with the pictures and then perhaps they'll want to learn more about it. I use a lot of audience participation and find kids who aren't really part of it and try to include them - to draw in those reluctant readers.

Pictures are very important. I remember at home we had illustrated editions of Rudyard Kipling's 'Just So Stories' and 'The Jungle Book,' which were read to me. Living in Zimbabwe made it very real, especially the 'Just So Stories' with the 'great grey-green greasy Limpopo.'

I was brought up in Zimbabwe, and there were seven of us in my family, so it was difficult to read aloud to us all. There weren't that many picture books around in the Fifties in Zimbabwe. My favourite was Heinrich Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter, which was really frightening.

Winnie The Witch' transgresses all cultural boundaries. Amusingly, there have been attempts to deconstruct the meaning of the books - that Winnie represents society and Wilbur the disabled - but I think it's just a great story.