Paula promotes the magic of books

by Marie Williams and Danielle Galley

Danielle (left) and Marie meet Paula Danziger

Popular American author Paula Danziger is well-known in Britain as the book reviewer on the BBC Saturday morning TV show, "Live And Kicking".

Having read a few of her books and having seen her on television we were really excited when we were given the chance to interview her in person at Madeline Lindley’s book store in Oldham.

Paula is very friendly and she helped us to relax during the whole of the interview. Her dress sense can only be described as ‘different’ and her hand bag is the shape of a car!

She is really into jewellery and she counted our rings to find that we had 18 between us! She really liked the three sets of ear-rings in Danielle’s ears. Paula was wearing a lot of jewellery herself.

Paula always wanted to be either a stand-up comic, a teacher or a writer. She plumped for writing and thinks that all books are magic. Paula is always on the look out for ideas for books. She uses observation, imagination and experiences for her ideas and says that "ideas can come from everything."

Some of her ideas came from her childhood, which includes a time when her niece's best friend was moving away and Paula took her to England where she got chicken pox. She wrote "You Can't Eat Your Chicken Pox, Amber Brown" after this experience!

Paula also wrote "The Cat Ate My Gymsuit" from her experiences as a child. She said: "I was a little fat kid who hated gym class at school."

Paula said she loves all kinds of books by different authors, especially ones which make her cry. Apart from reading, she loves to shop, travel and talk on the telephone. She said she doesn't cook, although she has made chocolate brownies with peas and tuna fish!

Paula has appeared on TV for the last few years and really hopes to do more TV work in the future. She has already talked to Malory Blackman about an interview which she wants to do next year. Paula also travels a lot and she said: "What makes a place interesting is the people."

Paula wants to write a lot more books in the future, learn how to parallel park and make a good cup of coffee! She ended the interview saying: "I like what I'm doing, I'm so lucky!"

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