March 3, 2025
Ivor Baddiel is a scriptwriter and author, with a wide range of books as well as multiple TV credits including Comic Relief, The Voice and Soccer Aid! He's recently worked with Purple Mash Publishing on Top 10 Deadliest Animals, where Purple Mash users chose the subject and submitted their own top 10 lists to be featured in the book.
Alongside the 25 submitted lists, inside Top 10 Deadliest Animals, you'll also find QR codes that link to online quizzes, colouring activities, jokes, and a space for readers to add their own Top 10.
Read on to find out how Ivor got into writing, where he gets his ideas from and his top tips for becoming an author 👇
What made you decide to start writing children’s books?
Nothing really ‘made’ me start writing for children, the first book I ever had published, a football-encyclopaedia-type-thing, was for children, and I liked the challenge of conveying information to a younger audience in a way that they can understand and enjoy.
Then, with some ideas they just lend themselves more to being for children than others – alien dinosaurs on stilts for example – so they are a natural fit.
Can you tell us one fun fact about you?
When I was younger, 15 I think it was, I broke my foot and a friend sent me a letter addressed to, I’ve a bad heel.
What’s your favourite thing about being a writer?
I love the freedom of it, both creatively and as a job.
Creatively, it allows you to make up lots of great things and sort of go and visit them and spend time in them, and as a job it’s something you can do almost anywhere and at any time. There are deadlines of course, but if a book has to be in by a certain date you can write it every afternoon for three months before that or stay up for three days before the date and get it done that way – I don’t do it that way by the way... but you could if you wanted to.
How do you come up with ideas for your books?
I buy them from an ideas shop! No, if only it was that easy...there’s no real answer to this question. Sometimes an idea can hit you completely out of the blue, sometimes you scour your brain for something - a comment made by someone could spark something... in short, ideas come from anywhere and everywhere.
What is your writing process like?
Quite haphazard really! I write in short bursts...so I’ll write for 2-3 minutes, then I’ll stop and think (or, more often than not, do something else – play a game on my phone, make a cup of tea, put some music on), then I do another 2-3 minutes and stop again.
Sometimes I try to tell myself that I’m going to sit and write for half an hour without stopping, but it never really happens that way for me.
Can you recommend short, fun activities that might help children develop their writing skills?
Well, all writing is good - and reading - so the first thing I’d say is, write (and read) as much as you can. Like anything else, the more you do it, the better you will get. As for activities, you could set yourself challenges such as to write a joke every day, or write a diary entry for a different animal every day, or write a story in under 200 words every day.
What advice or tips would you give to aspiring writers?
I remember early on in my writing career feeling a bit stuck and then realising that no one was watching me, so I could write whatever I wanted to...and if it was rubbish, I could hit the delete button and no one, apart from me, would ever know about it. And that realisation, that no one was watching me, was really freeing and allowed me to just go for it.
Obviously, further down the line, if you want to have a book published, other people will see your writing, but in the first instance, it is just you and your computer (or piece of paper if that is how you write) and it doesn’t matter what you write, so don’t feel constrained, just go for it!
What was your favourite book when you were growing up?
Well, I only really read comics when I was younger, and by far my favourite was Asterix, with Tintin coming in a close second.
What was your favourite thing about your most recent project, Top 10 Deadliest Animals?
I loved learning about all the animals - there were so many interesting things about them, I probably could have made the book a lot longer! I also really enjoyed coming up with all the jokes at the end of the book.
If you weren’t a writer, what would you have been?
I would love to have been a footballer, but if for some incredible reason, I didn’t have the talent, I would probably have been a psychologist.
Top 10 Deadliest Animals is available to buy now from the 2Simple Shop. It's just £5.99 with discounts applied for multiple copies. The 2Simple Shop now accepts payments made via invoice, making it even easier for schools to place orders.
Aspiring writers can try out some of Ivor's methods on Purple Mash, including creating comic books just like his old favourites Asterix and TinTin! You could even use his latest book, Top 10 Deadliest Animals, as inspiration and choose your favourite deadly animal to write about!
Another great way of inspiring your creative writing is by using the Videos for Creative Writing - five-part projects with a video and accompanying resources for each step! Choose from:
