Author Katharine Holabird and illustrator Helen Craig started collaborating decades ago on Angelina Ballerina children’s books that now are on maybe their second or third generation of young readers, certainly their second generation of parents (sorry ladies we could not think of another way to convey the timeline). The books have been adapted to a musical stage presentation and also two television animated series, years apart. At the urging of their publisher Simon & Schuster they have begun creating chapter books based on the same characters. In recent days, Katharine Holabird has also embarked on a new adventure (we thought she would like that word!) as she collaborates with illustrator Sarah Warburton for the books based on the character of Twinkle, a fairy. Katharine Holabird sat down with Riveting Riffs Magazine over Zoom for a conversation recently about her books and how she got started as a writer.

I started writing when I was a child, because I always liked to make up stories and right them down. I was the family storyteller. I grew up with three sisters and we were always acting out stories, making things up and dancing around the house. I just loved writing. I was writing about horses and princesses at that time. I was reading anything about animals. I think my favorite book as a child was Charlotte’s Web, because she could understand what the animals were saying to each other.

In those days there wasn’t TV so I was reading all of the Oz books (editor’s note: initially by L. Frank Baum and following his death later the mantle was taken up by authors Ruth Plumly Thompson, John R. Neill, Jack Snow, Rachel R.C. Payes, Eloise Jarvis McGraw and Lauren Lynn McGraw and for a total of forty books.) My father would read aloud to us all of the tales of King Arthur.

 It (writing) was something I continued in school and then when I was in college in Vermont, I was a literature major. There was a lot of creative writing. I wanted to become a writer, but honestly, I had no idea of how to become a writer.

It wasn’t until I had children, two daughters and later on a son in London (England) I got a lucky break and I became a children’s author. I had always kept writing before that and I was a freelance journalist.

My husband and I moved to England in 1973. We had met in Italy, in Rome. We had a wonderful time living in Rome and I learned Italian. I could have probably lived there indefinitely and had a wonderful time in Rome. We went to London and my husband got involved in a little publishing company. It was called Arum Press. He started it with a friend from his boarding school days. I was at home with the kids and I said just hire me; I will write anything. I am available. I will  write book flaps or interview people; I can write down notes or anything that is needed.  He did hire me to do various things. I went to Paris once with a one-year-old child and I interviewed lady photographers for a book,” she says. 

Then came another fortuitous turn when as she says, “We met Helen Craig. Helen was a single parent. She had been a photographer, but she was also very keen to illustrate. She is an amazing artist. She was doing little mouse characters and she was trying to find a publisher.  She wanted to make a calendar or a counting book or something. She wasn’t a writer. When she brought the mouse characters to Michael, he thought it would make a very cute book and I wrote the first one, The Little Mouse One Two Three, which was a counting book we did together and then we did a book about the days of the week. Those were the first two books I worked on with Helen and that was just because luckily, I was just there as the freelance person at the publishing house.

Then they did a little accordion book. I’ve got one (She looks at the shelves behind her.) I will show you. This was (one of) Helen’s first books (She opens up the book accordion style) You can see the tiny mice. This one was the days of the week. It fit into a little jacket that was very cute. Michael managed to sell it to Random House in the U.S. and they did rather well.  Then he said we should really do a children’s picture book with Helen’s illustrations of mice, but they didn’t have a story.

As Helen says their little hands can show expressions, their whiskers can show expressions.  They have these tails that are up and down, happy and sad. I went home and I had two dancing daughters and I (also) had a childhood when I made up dances all of the time with my sisters. The story of Angelina Ballerina (also the title of the first book published in 1983) was so much a part of my childhood and the childhood of my two daughters. I wrote a draft and I gave it to Helen and she made a beautiful little dummy to present to Arum Press. They published it and my husband sold it to Crown Publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Within months they were calling me up and saying you have to write more, because they were selling so well in the U.S. It was real serendipity.”

As for the name Angelina, “We wanted a name that went beautifully with ballet or ballerina. Funny you should ask, because originally, I called her Primrose, but there was someone else who had published a book with a mouse called Primrose (she chuckles) before me, so we couldn’t use Primrose. Then I thought it has to go with ballerina. We were sitting in the publishing office thinking of names and we started with A and one of the assistants walked in and her name was Angela. We thought it could be Angelina Ballerina (she says it as if sounding it out for the first time) and it was so perfect.

What about Angelina’s cousin Henry the little boy mouse who calamity seems to follow him around?

“Henry came in with Angelina On Stage, which I think was book number three or four. I really thought she needed a younger sibling and how could we instantly have a little boy sibling and so we thought he will be the little cousin and he is just there in his little yellow vest and his safety pin. I think he is just the cutest character.

Grand Slamm Children’s Film Entertainment in London did a wonderful animation (Produced by HIT Entertainment) from 2001 to 2006). Both won a lot of awards and I think they were very true to the books. They were very charming and witty. I love them.  I had so much fun working on them and I got invited one day to go and watch (Dame) Judi Dench record the voice of Miss Lilly. That was really exciting. She did it, because her daughter was Angelina (voiced by Finty Williams).

As for the amount of input that Katharine and Helen had in the later animated series she says, “It was different the second time around. The first time we had a lot with the full cell animation (check to make sure I got this right) We were with HIT Entertainment, which was Jim Henson’s old company in London. When he died his partner Peter Orton took over. Peter loved Angelina and he wanted us to be totally engaged with the production, so we were. It was so much fun. The head writer was Barbara Slate who was an American, but the rest were all British. We just listened to them and the stories they came up with for animation, but Helen and I would okay them.

Then Peter died and the company got sold to Apax. Apax (The owners of HIT Entertainment from 2005 – 2012) told us they wanted to do a new animation (Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps, 2009 - 2010), but it was going to be different. It was going to be CGI and Helen and I were involved, but it wasn’t at all the same. As you can see from looking at it, it is totally different. There was a huge committee of people working on this and everybody knew better than us. They kind of yessed us to death. It was not like the first time.”

“The feedback from children is special, because they are really little. Generally, four-year-olds and five-year-olds aren’t writing letters. I used to get a lot from children in Britain. I have gotten all sorts of adorable letters over the years from children. I also did a lot of book festivals up and down England and also some here. They are the cutest children. They all think they are going to see a dancing mouse. I realized from early on that to make some magic happen, we had to have a ballerina with me, not just a nice lady reading a book. I did the Angelina show all over with young ballerinas. They are usually local and I tell them to wear something sparkly or pink if they have it. I have some Angelina ears and a tail and I put a little dot on their noses and I draw whiskers. We are creating the magic of ballet in front of the children. I read Angelina Ballerina and they dance the part of Angelina. We have had so much fun with little children doing that. People (contact) me on my website and I always get back to them. They tell me how special Angelina has been to them and it is so moving. I had a mother write to me once about her autistic child and she loved Angelina. It was the first time that she saw her get up and dance. I have been lucky to have done this. It has been very rewarding and special,” Katharine Holabird gratefully acknowledges. 

So, we were curious about the evolution from the 600 words books to the chapter books and how it all came about.

“I have written four. Simon & Schuster asked me if I would be interested in expanding Angelina’s world into chapter books and I thought it was a great idea. Again, there is a format. The picture books are six hundred words and these were five thousand, I think.

It was such a treat to be able to expand (big smile) on these characters and on Angelina’s life. I went back and revisited some of the themes in the picture books like meeting the princess, but this time I made the princess into a tomboy who doesn’t want to do the old-fashioned ballet dance that the palace requires of all princesses. She wants to do something new and to include her gymnastics. So, she is sitting in a tree in a purple leotard. She is an anti-princess and that is really fun. (She takes her chapter book from the shelf behind her and shows me).

They were fun to write. Best big sister ever about starting school with her little sister. She eventually did get a little sister called Polly and that is the name of my little sister.

(We share a joke when I ask if Polly got along with Henry) I do have a funny story about Henry. I do have a son; Adam and he felt that Angelina had helped him a lot through his dating years in high school and college. He would say to girls do you know who Henry is in the Angelina books. (She answers for the girls in our conversation enthusiastically) ‘Yes, I do. I love Henry.’ He said actually I am Henry. (She laughs lightly and then dramatically says) It always blew them away.

The Angelina books are filled with people who lived around us in London and friends of my children and situations that my children were in, like being late for ballet class, feeling ill and not being able to go to ballet. These were huge disasters (for the children), but nothing really. When children have these problems, they are mega. I was always taking note of their own dramas growing up. Their passion for dancing,” Katharine Holabird explains. 

As for the collaboration between Helen Craig and Katharine Holabird she says, “I come up with a story idea and I discuss it with her right from the very beginning. She is a marvellously imaginative person herself. Her illustrations are so fabulous. I would tell her what I was thinking and I would listen to her comments then I go ahead and write a draft or two or three. I send it to her when I think it is ready. She comes back and discusses the dramatic points she wants to illustrate. You can give Helen the text and she will take it away and make a beautiful book out of it. It is a dream to work with her. She is such a professional and such a perfectionist. Everything she does is so beautifully done.

She has a huge drawing board and she will lay everything out. When I go to schools and talk, I tell the children you know Helen Craig puts all of her pencils and paints away after she uses them and why do you think it is that she does that? The children raise their hands (She mimics a child’s voice) so they will know where they are for the next time! Then I say yes, she always knows where everything is and she keeps everything tidy.

She starts in pen with ink and then different watercolors. It really is such a beautiful process. I finish writing the story in maybe a month and one-half and it takes her eight or nine months to illustrate it. A lot of illustrators are quick and people use computers now, but not Helen.”

To make a cheesy pun, there is a new twinkle in Katharine Holabird’s eye.

“I wanted to write about something new, and I've always loved fairies, so the idea for a little fairy called Twinkle came quite naturally to me. Twinkle is a fun-loving fairy child who lives in the Sparkle Tree Forest. She goes to the Fairy School of Magic and Music and has exciting adventures with her fairy friends and the playful creatures in the forest. Twinkle is great fun to write about, she's a sweet, well-meaning character, but she sometimes gets her spells wrong - and then havoc ensues!” explains Katharine Holabird, while talking about her other series of books that are illustrated by Sarah Warburton.

Speaking of Sarah Warburton, “I was thrilled when UK Illustrator Sarah Warburton agreed to illustrate my Twinkle stories.

I admired Sarah's work and asked my editor if we could meet. Right away I knew she was perfect for Twinkle. Sarah's illustrations are full of humor and charm, and she captures all the sparkle and magic of Twinkle's fairy world in a unique and refreshingly contemporary way. Sarah is more of a techie than Helen, and illustrates on her computer as well as manually, which makes her quite speedy. They are both highly professional and easy to work with, sharing ideas and drafts as we go along, creating unforgettable and beloved children's characters.

There are four Twinkle story books for young fairy lovers, as well as a series of Twinkle Early Readers, all published by Simon & Schuster.”

Circling back to the Angelina musical that was produced she says, “In 2019 HIT Entertainment and the Vital Theater Company in NYC produced "Angelina, the Musical," with a cast of young actors performing and singing in mouse ears and tails. The following year Vital added "Angelina's Very Merry Musical," a “mooseling” Christmas show. I loved going to the rehearsals and being part of such a special production for young Angelina fans. At the end of the show all the excited children were invited to go onstage and dance with the cast. It was fantastic!

Please visit the Katharine Holabird website where you can find a nice Christmas or birthday gift for a daughter, niece, grandchild or just a special child and begin to build special memories, because afterall they will stay with you forever. You can also follow Katharine Holabird on her Instagram page. Return to Our Front Page 

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This interview by Joe Montague  published October 6th, 2025 is protected by copyright © and is the property of Riveting Riffs Magazine All Rights Reserved.  All photos and artwork are the the property of Katharine Holabird and Helen Craig unless otherwise noted and all  are protected by copyright © All Rights Reserved. This interview may not be reproduced in print or on the internet or through any other means without the written permission of Riveting Riffs Magazine.