As Lauren Child celebrates 25 years of writing and illustrating her much-loved Charlie and Lola children’s books, we chat at her London studio about everything from libraries, art galleries, dolls houses and writers’ block to growing up in the seventies. 

Lauren has worked with UNESCO in places like Mongolia - where she adopted her daughter from - and was Children’s Laureate.

I Am Wishing Every Minute for Christmas is out now. Lauren laughs when she reveals she started writing it 20 years ago and apologies to her US agent for making her wait 10 million 512 thousand minutes!