Julia and Axel – Thirty years of favourite stories

This summer, The Lowry in collaboration with publishers Macmillan Children’s Books and Scholastic, are hosting a new exhibition celebrating the acclaimed partnership between Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, who have created some of the world’s best-loved, and best-selling children’s books, including The Gruffalo, Zog, Room on the Broom, The Smeds and the Smoos, and most recently, The Baddies.

From Saturday 22nd July, this free family-friendly exhibition will feature several of Julia Donaldson’s personal writing notebooks; containing the very first ideas and creative thinking behind her picture book stories. These will be shown alongside Axel Scheffler’s artwork, showing the process of his illustrations from sketches and works in progress, to full page final illustrations that readers are familiar with seeing in the finished books.

Throughout the exhibition there will be lots of fun opportunities for children to be creative themselves as they are guided to write their own stories, draw pictures, dress up, and play fun games inspired by the books.

Location: The Lowry Gallery

Opening times:

• Closed Mondays
• Tue-Fri: 11am-5pm
• Sat & Sun: 10am-5pm

Artwork by Axel Scheffler. Copyright © Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler 2023