Wow! Our first David Walliams review, which seems absolutely incredible considering how many books this talented fella has now written...and it nails Chapter Book of the Week for this week...

Our Book(s) of the week this week see the welcome return of Heapy and Heap to the "Book of the Week" slot with another two awesome "Very Little" stories!

Marvel's Thor - Now female in the comics - Outsold her male counterpart tenfold.  Comics, they are a-changing (for the better!)

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. It's like that comfortable pair of slippers that are literally falling apart at the seams, but are just too nice and snuggly to throw away. Nostalgia wraps us up in a comfort blanket of reminding us who and where we were when certain events unfolded, or certain TV shows aired, certain movies were going great guns in the cinema, or certain comics thrilled us with amazing and original stories.

Hollywood treats nostalgia like a blood bank. At the expense of original stories and movie-making, Hollywood has been tapping into its past glories to try and float new multi-billion-dollar movie franchises for a new audience, most of the time instantly alienating folk who should really be along for the nostalgia trip.

I recently read a very thought-provoking article that made some truly fantastic points about how women in science (and science fiction) are powerful role models to young girls who have scientific aspirations, who could truly be the next Elon Musk or Bill Gates, or anyone they want to be.

It got me thinking about writing an editorial about how movies, comics, books and TV also need to stop treating female characters like second-class citizens, and how there's still this weird ingrained notion in a few male (and sadly, some female) minds that this is a perfectly acceptable situation.

One of the article's key sections touched on why now, more than ever, we need a female Doctor Who. "12" is about to step down, and there seems no better time to prove that the doc can indeed be male or female, any gender or race, as this is now part of the show's 'bible'.

It got me thinking how much I'd root like mad for someone like Sue Perkins, Tamsin Grieg, Joanna Lumley or even Michelle Gomez to take on that most iconic role (The Michelle Gomez thing. At time of writing I have this crazy crackerjack theory that Doctor Who might regenerate as Missy but I guess we'll have to wait and see on Saturday!)

It also got me thinking about the whole 'gender swap' thing in general, and a concern I have about merely lifting and shifting a character from male to female.

The problem I have with the idea of gender swapping well established characters in comics and science fiction is complicated, and might sound like a rather sexist knee-jerk reaction to seeing a change made purely to prove that a female character would work as well as, if not better than, a male counterpart. It's really not that, it's more that I feel cheated if we're starved of new story ideas by merely retreading old ones with new shiny ideas that are just a quick fix.

On many occasions I've had quite animated discussions with Charlotte about the idea that we now have fantastic characters in comics that could easily emulate Wonder Woman's movie and comic success, and in some cases we've had those characters for years.

Gender swapping is of course in full swing in the comics industry - and that's before you even start talking about female characters rocking the comic world in their own right.

We have a female Thor now, whose comics have outsold her male counterpart ten to one. A girl has taken over Iron Man's mantle in the comics, again reinventing Tony Stark's ego-driven technological genius as a slightly dorky but extremely driven and clever young woman. We also have Spider-Gwen, arguably one of the most tightly written and gorgeously created comics of the last decade, and She-Hulk has been around for a long time - coming along way ahead of her time and basically making the big green bloke look like a bit of a whiny wussbag.

In the movies we have a female team of Ghostbusters who kicked their own brand of ass in a movie that actually surprised the heck out of me by not being a total suck-fest (Again, more because I don't like Paul Feig's stuff - nothing to do with an all-female cast though Holtzmann stole the show, just sayin').

But for both Charlotte and I, the characters that have always interested us the most are the ones that established a strong and viable female core character right from the very start - in some cases when comics, movies and TV were in their very infancy.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that a female Doctor Who would work. It would cause a gigantic uproar too, and - similar to what happened when the Star Wars series suddenly started to focus more on strong female leads with Episode 7 and Rogue One - we'd lose a load of buttheaded morons who'd instantly boycott or swear off the show (Boo bloody hoo. Good riddance I'd say).

But I'd want to at least see that it was being done for the right reasons. Not as a measure of 'girls are as good as, if not better than boys', but definitely to establish a strong and inspirational character that would again lend weight to the argument that science fiction and stories can continue to push not just boundaries of science and technology, but for storytelling too.

Back to the point though, again it still feels like for each and every instance where a gender-swap is proposed, we're missing the opportunity to tap into the vast sea of science fiction and fantasy works by women featuring strong female characters. Recasting Doctor Who as female still feels a bit like camping on an already well-established mythos, when there are so many potentially awesome stories and books out there that would work as TV or movies in their own right.

Something like "Station Eleven" by Emily St John Mandel, a superbly written post-apocalyptic novel that you could easily visualise as a series.

Or "Boneshaker" by Cherie Priest, again a truly awesome slice of dark and gritty steampunk that would be awesome as a movie.

And for goodness sake WHY have we still not seen any of Malorie Blackman's work given the big or small screen treatment?

Comics wise I'd truly love to see Motor Crush become a movie sensation (and it so easily could, it's so cinematic and pacy), Snot Girl would be a classic cult flick in the making and I'm pleased to see that at last we're going to get a Hilda animated series (though the early look at this was a bit jarring, the characters weren't quite there).

My main point is that there are so many great female fantasy and science fiction authors out there, why are they not getting picked up for movies and TV?

Gender-swapping male characters also seems to nudge uncomfortably against the argument that we are pushing towards a genderless society - or at least a society where gender is no longer seen as a war, a battle, a conflict, two sides endlessly butting heads trying to prove a point that seems woefully old fashioned and prehistoric now, that "One is better than the other because bullshit".

How are we supposed to encourage kids that gender doesn't matter, does not define you, if we spend endless hours on the internet arguing that "making character A female would make a huge, huge difference to women and girls", are we not just switching the argument from one side to the other rather than negating it entirely?

It's tough to not give in to the allure of reinventing characters as female though, particularly when the results are usually stunning, and you can see the different and original possibilities that this would open up in storytelling (and yes, it's certainly a far easier idea to visualise than doing the flip in the other direction - I still can't imagine the new Splash movie - featuring a Male "Madison" as being anything other than a complete disaster).

Last point - let's assume that the next incarnation of the Doctor is female, but is still written largely by an all-male writing team, in a show overseen by a male showrunner (though thankfully with a good few female episode directors and writers doing the show justice, like Rachel Talalay who has constantly surprised me with her Doctor Who work, considering how disastrous I thought the Tank Girl movie was).

Wouldn't it be neat if those roles were swapped too?

Well, there's no doubt about it, this is certainly an entirely original title but thoroughly absorbing and enlightening indeed...!

Hello friends, and welcome to another fabulous chapter book round up. It's June, and as I type this the rain is beating itself into a mist on the road outside. Yet we still have a smidgeon of hope that we might see some sunshine soon.

With that in mind, let's dip into our first book of this month's roundup. "Coyote Summer" by Mimi Thebo is a gloriously atmospheric story of a young girl, a wild animal and the sandy plains and mountains of Kansas.

Jules has done something terrible (though obviously we're not going to tell you exactly what - that's for you to discover!)

Originally harking from London, she's ripped out of her comfort zone and sent to live in disgrace with her Aunt and Uncle in Kansas.

Alone, a stranger in a strange land, Jules digs her heels in and begins the tough process of clawing her way back to some sense of normalcy, always with a level of paranoia that folks somehow know her past. It takes a wild Coyote, her love of ballet and a tough but fair regime on her aunt and uncle's farm to show Jules what she's really made of.

Stunningly hauntingly written, full of glorious imagery, Mimi's writing is electrifyingly good.

"Coyote Summer" by Mimi Thebo is out now, published by OUP / Oxford Children's Books. 

Next we have a book that couldn't be further away from Coyote Summer in tone and story if it tried. "Defender of the Realm: Dark Age" is a glorious fantasy follow-up to the original "Defender of the Realm" book, once again from Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler.

Battle awesome beasts and fight evil with Tom and Elenna in the bestselling adventure series for boys and girls aged 7 and up!

In the frozen waters of Drakonia lurks Korvax the Sea Dragon.
When a maximum-security prison ship crashes on earth, Cyberton's most-wanted criminals escape.

The detectives at Wings and Co are in a bit of bother.
"Magic Animal Friends - Anna Fluffyfoot Goes for Gold" is the latest in the hugely popular Magic Animal Friends series, from the author of Rainbow Magic, Daisy Meadows.
Daniel Kendal is back - along with his friends Gordon the Geek and Freddo. 

Possibly one of the sparkliest books we've reviewed this year, it's the return of Twinkle the Fairy in "Twinkle Makes a Wish" by Katherine Holabird and Sarah Warburton...

All the sights, sounds and...er...smells of the Farmyard are here in the latest "Class" book from Julia Jarman and Lynne Chapman...

Wow, we had to dig back into the archives to find our original review of "Little Red" by David Roberts and Lynn Roberts-Maloney. But here it is.

As always it's interesting to revisit books we reviewed when Charlotte was very little to see how much 'grown up' Charlotte likes them now.

David Roberts' "Fantastic Fairy Tales" are wonderful treatments that don't just take a traditional story and polish it up a bit, David tends to pay great attention to a particular era's fashions, fitments and architecture in order to make these stories truly pop.

There's usually a twist or two as well, and in the case of Little Red, Red is a boy.

He lives with his parents who own a rather lovely cafe, and are famous for their food and their tingly ginger beer.

When Red pays his weekly visit to his Grandmother's house to take her some provisions, he's warned to keep an eye out for the nefarious wolf that dwells in the forest.

The wolf, however, is extremely cunning - and seizing the opportunity for a double-whammy Red / Grandma snack, the wolf poses as Red by stealing his coat, in order to worm his way into Grandma's house.

You can probably guess the rest. Though no wolves were harmed in the making of this book - though there are plenty of loud ginger-beer-induced belches.

Lynn's stylish retelling is coupled perfectly with David's uber-detailed illustrations (again Charlotte just couldn't get enough of the warped trees with their dark screaming faces, and the knots in the woodwork in Grandma's house with the same little faces on them). Taking its cues from 18th century fashion and surroundings it's a gorgeous book with a dark edge to it (darker than the seam of Grandma's dress in fact!)

"Little Red: A Favourite Tale with a Twist" is out now, published by Pavilion.

Sticking with David and Lynn's brilliant fairy tale reworkings, we also took another look at "Sleeping Beauty: A Mid Century Fairy Tale"...

This time the action veers between the 1950s and glorious future-retro cues, right into the far flung future as a little girl is born, and an evil witch swears her revenge for not being invited to the Christening.

The girl's godmothers swear to protect Annabel as the witch's curse (in the form of a finger-prick from a gorgeous old Dansette Record Player - the sort of thing hipsters today would give their right kidney for) takes hold and she sleeps for a thousand years. In the far-flung future another little girl, Zoe, reads the legend of Sleeping Beauty and feels that there's a grain or two of truth to it.

She sets out to rescue Annabel - but will she be too late?

Again, a gorgeously reworked version of a well-loved classic and again David's artwork is as good as it gets. You can find our original review of "Sleeping Beauty" here (unsurprisingly it was a Book of the Week!)

"Sleeping Beauty: A Mid Century Fairy Tale" is out now, published by Pavilion. 

It's quite a way off but come September lots of little ones will be going up to "Big School" for the first time...

Do you love birthdays? Do you love books? Then you're going to love this awesome board book version of Giles Andreae and Emma Dodd's "I Love My Birthday"...

If there's one thing we love more than anything else, it's the excuse to dig into a new and inspirational art book...!

Here's an utterly fantastic little board  book with an innovative 'round' design that plopped into our review pile, making us both giggle and 'awww' at the same time.

We don't often drag ourselves out of bed for 9.30 on a Sunday morning but when you're asked very nicely by the lovely Olivia at Scholastic to take part in Scholastic's celebration of Pride and LGBTQ+ Publishing, how can you possibly resist!

It's Pride Festival time so between the 24th June and 9th July, lots of wonderful folk will be taking part in celebrations across the country.

We're doing our small part by taking a look at three books published by Scholastic that really show off LGBTQ+ writing at its very best.

We start with "George" by Alex Gino, and this was one Charlotte could review herself - promptly diving in at the merest mention of one of her other favourite books, "Charlotte's Web".

George - the central character in this story - is a girl, but people keep thinking she's a boy.

George has her heart set on the role of Charlotte (the spider, not the uber-book-reviewer!) in the school's play, but no one seems to understand why - and her teachers are completely shutting her down before she even gets a chance to try out for the part. Because "She is a BOY!" in their eyes.

Thankfully George has a plan. With a little help from her best friend Kelly, they hatch a brilliant idea that may just win George the part, but more importantly will help everyone know and understand who George really is after all.

This is a beautifully written tale that's bang on for Charlotte's age group, the age where most parents know that questions will undoubtedly arise about gender issues, and that whole impossible to define essence of what kids perceive as 'normal' vs the reality of the rich and wonderful world we live in.

Alex Gino has penned a glorious story that touches on their own experiences, and provides real, believable characters that can go a long way to answering some of the questions children Charlotte's age will have, but above all else it's an utterly riveting read that will have you rooting for George right from page one.

"George" by Alex Gino is out now, published by Scholastic. 

The next two books are more suitable for a YA audience (but I really can't wait for Charlotte to read both of these when she's a bit older).

Starting off with Lucy Sutcliffe's awesome "Girl Hearts Girl"...

Lucy writes about her own experiences of a long distance relationship born over the internet.

YouTube Sensation Lucy has written an inspiring, uplifting and sympathetic story about sexuality and self-acceptance.

Her debut memoir is a personal and moving coming out story.

In 2010, at seventeen, Lucy Sutcliffe began an online friendship with Kaelyn, a young veterinary student from Michigan. Within months, they began a long distance relationship, finally meeting in the summer of 2011.

Lucy's video montage of their first week spent together in Saint Kitts, which she posted to the couple's YouTube channel, was the first in a series of films documenting their long-distance relationship.

Funny, tender and candid, the films attracted them a vast online following.

Now, for the first time, Lucy's writing about the incredible personal journey she's been on; from never quite wanting the fairy-tale of Prince Charming to realising she was gay at the age of 14, through three years of self-denial to finally coming out to friends and family, to meeting her American girlfriend Kaelyn.

Be warned, this book can really put your emotions through the wringer at times, but it's written entirely from the heart and will undoubtedly find a whole new appreciative audience in book form, just as it did on YouTube through Lucy's Vlogs.

"Girl Hearts Girl" by Lucy Sutcliffe is out now, published by Scholastic. 

Last but not least, a book I couldn't wait to read - purely based on the buzz it was getting on Twitter. Happy to say that as usual, my Twitter chums were not wrong...!

"Noah Can't Even" by Simon James Green is tea-snortingly funny, moving, heart-wrenching and gloriously written.

Imagine being in the shoes of poor Noah Grimes.

Our Chapter Book of the Week this week saw Charlotte go unusually quiet...

Our first Picture Book of the Week proves you can never be too old to appreciate a brilliant and imaginative dinosaur tale...

Sometimes it seems so easy, this 'dadding' lark. You spend all week working at 'the boring day job' with a few snatched moments of being able to relax in the evenings.

Both of us came to the conclusion that our evening routine is always under pressure. Depending on who is picking Charlotte up from school, you know you've got a few short hours to squeeze in homework, bath, teatime, books and bed - and in the summer that routine gets squeezed even further (as all parents will tell you, it's virtually impossible to get your kids to go to bed when it's still blazingly sunny outside and they can hear other kids out there playing).

After a visit from our Canadian cousin, we heard how they as a family still manage to sit down in the evenings and perhaps play board and card games, have a chat about their day etc and I realised that most weekday nights our routine goes something like this

1) One or the other of us will have got home first other than on days when grandparents have kindly stepped in for school pickup.

2) One or the other of us will have wrestled Charlotte into the shower, coaxed her through her homework and given a vague thought on what to have for dinner.

3) One or the other of us will then try and think of something else to do that hopefully avoids the dreaded modern babysitter of our age (screen time) or one or the other of us staring listlessly at our phones to see what's going on in our social media feeds, email or whatever else (my wife argues this point but she will spend more time in the evenings doing this than I do - possibly because she has more friends :)

We tried to shake things up a bit, determined to have some proper family time that didn't involve us all in different rooms doing our own thing. Sitting down to a game of Carcassonne that descended into racking sobs from Charlotte who was just too tired to cope with the game not going her way.

Parenting is weird. Many will tell you that it's a breeze when - like Dad Duck up there - they may appear serene on the surface but are paddling like crazy under the surface just to keep going.

There has been a huge shift in the way parents divvy up their responsibilities now, and though it's nowhere near a perfect balance things are definitely better than they have ever been, with more dads not just actively taking part in the fun stuff - but realising they've got a responsibility to pitch in (without being asked) and help with all the mundane boring daily stuff too.

Don't be one of those dads who expects a spontaneous round of applause every time you pick up a piece of paper off the floor, or change a nappy. Be one of those dads who does that sort of stuff unprompted - even when you think you've had a bad day.

Mick Inkpen is a very busy bee indeed! His fantastic Kipper and Wibbly Pig books were some of Charlotte's favourites back in her toddler years...

Who knows what lurks in the deep dark jungle? This lushly illustrated book will definitely offer some clues

Wow, this is a stunning book - it's not often you get to enjoy something tricked out in shades of grey when it comes to children's literature...

Enter the world of a child's imagination, find a rich tapestry of storytelling, and meet one mischievous mouse...!

Charlie and Lola are timeless characters with endless appeal so it's great to see a fab range of board books getting a dust-down and republish, courtesy of Orchard Books...

We've really enjoyed the previous books in Frances Lincoln Publishing's awesome "Discover" series...

We're not quite finished with diggers and dinosaurs today, here's the first in a series of new 'make and play' books from Bloomsbury, "Dino Diggers: Digger Disaster" by Rose Impey and Chris Chatterton...

What could possibly be better than a book that mashes together hulking great big bits of machinery with hulking great big beasties! "Diggersaurs" by Michael Whaite...

Our Chapter Book of the Week makes us both happy and sad at the same time. "Princess Smartypants and the Fairy Geek Mothers" by Babette Cole...

This week's first Book of the Week makes science fun, and engages children in a whole stack of groovy experiments using ordinary household objects. Steve Mould's awesome "How to Be a Scientist"...

Again, this one was inspired by an awesome Twitterer and author. Polly Faber, author of the fantastic Mango and Bambang children's books (along with Clara Vulliamy providing glorious illustrations) obviously has the magic touch when it comes to convincing publishers that "Word counts ain't all that".

The Mango and Bambang books fall into a category that's now becoming comfortably established as a unique crossover point both for children who are solo reading and want something meatier than picture book texts, and adults who don't mind chipping away at a collection of longer stories over the course of a few bedtimes (or - like us - devouring longer illustration-heavy children's books with large word counts in one delicious gulp!)

Polly was tweeting about one book in particular, the utterly sublime "The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate" by Margaret Mahy and Margaret Chamberlain.

A children's picture book from that golden era where, as well as glorious illustrations, you'd get gorgeous flowing passages of lushly descriptive text like this:

(apologies for the cropping there, the internet is rubbish for trying to grab images from inside books)

As a struggling author trying to keep in mind one of the golden rules of picture book writing - that no book shall exceed 1000 words, or in some cases even 600 ON PAIN OF DEATH I wonder when the global shift in opinion happened - and when we suddenly assumed that children were incapable of focusing their attention on longer books with more words.

Thinking back through the years of writing this blog, it reminded me that one of our personal blog faves had established this fantastic format many, many years ago.



Margaret Bloy Graham and Gene Zion's superb "Harry" series once branched out into the kind of 'stepping stone' picture-to-chapter book range we're thinking about.

Dubbed the "I Can Read" range, "Harry and the Lady Next Door" was first published in 1960 and shared the same identical wordier but still illustration-heavy format.

An excerpt from "Harry and the Lady Next Door". Innovative and engaging formats definitely aren't new!

As well as the higher word count, these books were also divided up into "Chapters" - again to get children used to the eventual format they'd find in what I guess we'd call 'middle grade' chapter books nowadays.

Looking back through the blog, I realised we'd actually never reviewed this one - possibly because I read it to Charlotte when she was officially 'too young' for it. But I do clearly remember her never complaining about the higher word count (quite the opposite - it's a huge treat to be read something that's longer, as it puts off bedtime for a bit longer and she would also get more time with us when we read it - Double win!)

So is the word count cull a recent thing? Is it being driven by a purely economical desire by publishers to ensure that books don't cost a fortune to print? Is it being driven by an assumption that a child's attention span is shorter nowadays in an era where fidget spinners come in and out of fashion quicker than you can say "What on earth does this thing actually do?"

In our experience, both my wife and I have found that a mix of book lengths for our own collection at home is vital. Shorter books for bedtimes when madam has stayed up far too late but still likes a book read to her to settle her and allow her to snuggle down to a good night's sleep. Longer books for times when we've got more bedtime prep time to spare and can luxuriate in something that's almost a mini chapter book. In fact we do also read chapter books over the space of a few bedtimes as well, everything goes into the mix and we're still hanging on in there as long as possible, reading to Charlotte every night and hoping that the day when she turns round and asks us not to is a long long way off.

Polly and Clara's middle grade / chapter book-ish format may not be new then, but it is so needed and we've extolled the virtues of this format (and indeed book size) before.

It would be great to see a return to somewhat wordier large format picture books and I believe the only agents for change here are - well, literary agents, commissioning editors and publishers taking that risk - and not just for well-established authors either.

Of course it might sound purely like I'm pushing my own agenda here. Yes, it would also be wonderful to once, just once, not get a rejection purely based on the length of some of my stories and manuscripts (because I really can't get most of my stories much lower than 1000 words in most cases, no matter how hard I try - and I feel that a lot of the shorter stories over-rely on the mythical invisible illustrations and illustrator's talent to convey what I'm trying to get across).

Do you agree? Pop a comment below, open comments are enabled on the blog now so it's easier than ever.

The Scholastic Laugh Out Loud book awards are EXACTLY the sort of awards we can firmly get behind.

We love a good laugh, and we've been checking out two books - one in the 6-8 yrs shortlist category, and one in the 9-13 yrs shorlist category.

First up, we're dipping into Jim ("Barry Loser") Smith's intergalactic space epic and meeting possibly the world's most unlikely science fiction hero.

It's "Future Ratboy" the pointy-nosed hapless hero who, zapped by a bolt of lightning, was thrown millions of years into the future and turned into a half boy, half rat, half TV!

(Yes we know, you can't have three halves - well, you can if you're dealing with funny books!)

With new superkeel powers and a real life sidekick in Not Bird, Future Ratboy was born. He's defeated gruesome robot grannies, but what can he do against the evil Nom Noms? Something tells us that he's going to need more than a greasy cheesleburger to win this one!

In this new adventure, can Future Ratboy and Not Bird save Shnozville from the bitey little insects that are turning everyone into zombies? Will they defeat the evil Mr X? And how will they ever find their way home?

From Charlotte: "This is actually better than Barry loser - It's funny and completely silly but I couldn't stop reading it!"

High praise indeed. "Future Ratboy and the Invasion of the Nom Noms" by Jim Smith is published by Jelly Pie and is out now. 

Nominated for a Laugh out Loud award in the 6-8 yrs category so if you want to vote for it, vote NOW at the Scholastic Lollies Web Site.

We also dipped into the 9-13 years category, and read "My Gym Teacher is an Alien Overlord" by David Solomons and Laura Ellen Anderson...

This time we're talking about kids with superpowers in the stunning follow up to "My Brother is a Superhero".