When will the BBC stop adapting Julia Donaldson books?

Another Christmas, another BBC adaptation of a Julia Donaldson story. This time it’s an animated version of Tiddler, the story of a little fish who is always late for school and who makes up tall stories to explain why. The tall stories get around the ocean and when Tiddler gets caught by a fishing boat and tossed back in the sea, he is able to find his way home to Miss Skate and her lesson by following his own stories. Aww. As the CBeebies storyteller observed, ‘What make us powerful is not how big we are but by what’s inside.’ A perfect parable for our day then.

This will be the twelfth Julia Donaldson BBC adaptation for Christmas, based also on Axel Scheffler’s captivating drawings – the two being the Quentin Blake/Roald Dahl combo of our times.