It's our final ReadItTorial of 2017 here on ReadItDaddy (no, really this time) and we're going to throw our hats into the wind, and try once again to second-guess what we think might be the big trends in children's books, chapter books and comics for 2018 - with a few fun nonsense predictions thrown in for good measure.

We did pretty badly last year (As if POTUS could even write a book, let alone one that would sell three copies!) so if you'd like to tickle yourself with what we got right and what we got wrong, take a look here.

In the meantime though here's ten all new, all singing all dancing predictions for 2018 just as a bit of fun.





1) Fictional Non-fiction will become a thing. No really, we've seen huge leaps in non-fiction titles over the last few years, but very little progress with fictional non-fiction. Hear me out on this one, I think there's a vast untapped market for fiction that is dressed up like your favourite non-fiction titles. Imagine a "Facts about animals" book that went into every gory detail of completely made up animals. Or showed you the inner workings of completely fictional inventions in the sort of detail that would make Dorling Kindersley break into a cold midnight sweat. Fictional Non-Fiction: The next great genre for children's books, you mark my words!

2) Someone accidentally invents a fourth 'story type' for children's books that completely breaks the internet. We've heard so many times that there are just three story types for children's books. The journey taken, the epiphanic happenstance and the 'kitten that needs rescuing' but a fourth hitherto unknown story type, 'the gaseous eventuality of circumstance' is identified and most children's writers try to unpick the potential of this incredible source of inspiration.

3) The John Lewis Christmas Ad is a white background with 'buy stuff' on it - and is accused of plagiarism by B.J. Novak - the author of "The Book With No Pictures". You just cannot win, can you!

4) Scratch and Sniff books make a colossal comeback. They're the new fidget spinners, slime or loom bands (what's a loom band? Anyone? Completely forgotten!) Unfortunately the newly reprinted copies of "Fungus the Bogeyman: Scratch and Sniff Edition" are seized by customs for containing potentially life threatening hazardous material. Rare copies sell for zillions of Bitcoins on Ebay.

5) Someone describes a new and upcoming comedy author as "The Next David Walliams" and is instantly sued by the estate of Roald Dahl. Come on now, credit where credit's due.

6) The government publishing industry sets up a £30 billion 'think tank' to investigate the possibility of a 'Netflix-like' subscription service for books. The idea is to let people try books before buying them through something called a 'lending service', therefore encouraging children and new readers to get into reading at an earlier age, and stick with books through their academic lives.

Several million pounds is then spent on hiring an advertising agency to come up with a brand identity and a snappy new name for the service, and a way of sinking money into setting up dedicated 'bricks and mortar' spaces on the high street where the lending service can operate from. (OK, I know some of these predictions are a bit crazy and 'out there' but hey, you never know!)

7) Print sales continue to blitz digital book sales. (Actually this isn't really a whacky prediction is it, it's absolutely going to happen again in 2018!)

8) Somehow, schools manage to coordinate their own book days with World Book Day, rather than going off and doing their own thing. (Sorry, another one of those "So ludicrous it's just never going to happen" ones, I do apologise!)

9) The 50th anniversary edition of John Wyndham's "Chocky" is published, and becomes one of the biggest sellers of 2018, with Wyndham universally celebrated as 'an overlooked genius'. We live in hope! Kids, if you think nothing scares you, you haven't read this yet so get on it (it also happens to be the 50th anniversary of someone not too far away from this very blog btw, just sayin')

10) We somehow manage to stay on top of all of our reviews, publishing them in a timely fashion, and even manage to get ahead of the curve! (again, not very likely but we will indeed try!)


PHEW! We'll have to revisit these in 2019 and see how many came true. I'm rooting for at least three of these.

All the very best from us, and thank you so much for reading all our ReadItTorials in 2017. We look forward to tickling your inspiration again next year.

Who is that bearded weirdo?

This year we're once again setting up our stall and becoming booksellers for the day, selling our surplus books in aid of the local Baptist church Christmas charities.

We did a little write-up of last year's book sale which was far more fun than we expected it to be, with the ReadItDaddy team out in full force, selling books, recommending books and generally getting to talk to a lot of really lovely people who'd popped along to the sale in order to pick up a bargain.

Charitable book donations are our way of paying it forward, sharing the love of books with the secondary purpose of helping us clear our creaking bookshelves of books we've loved to bits but want to happily pass on to others less fortunate, helping folk to get hold of new books that would otherwise be out of their price range while helping a range of charities and organisations to benefit from our good fortune of being sent lots and lots of amazingly lovely books to read and review.

Regularly throughout the year we contribute to local charity shops too, as well as schools and other places that could use a bit of a brush-up with their book shelves or library services.

Never once during the entire lifespan of this blog has it ever occurred to us to try and profit from selling books (which would be utterly pointless and ridiculous, though I'm pretty sure others might have a different view on that, considering review copies of books a 'payment' for the time and trouble they've taken to write a review).

So if you're in Abingdon on Thames in Oxfordshire on Saturday 18th November from around 10am, till 2pm come and meet us and pick up a bargain!!

The second part of this ReadItTorial tackles a subject we've probably talked about before, back when this blog first started out and we made a conscious decision to review books and bin the idea of trying to do the whole "parent blogging" thing of reviewing anything we're offered.

There are thousands of parent bloggers out there who have a huge amount of time and expertise to put into their blogs and yet some of the things that always irritated us about that 'scattergun' approach to blogging are still present even in the blogs nipping away at the top spot on Mumsnet and the Tots100 listings.

It's a fair observation for folk to make that reviewing something you've received for zero pounds and zero pence instantly puts a lot of people on the back-foot. You have not paid for the goods you're writing up a glowing report on, therefore is there any worth in your opinion?

We've seen parent blogs giving more than 500 words to reviews of stuff that, quite frankly, I wouldn't let my daughter anywhere near, yet these reviews always make it sound like your life will instantly become meaningless and insignificant unless you start buying those super-healthy sugar-free juice boxes for your child's lunch box, or invest in a stroller or baby buggy that costs more than the average car (stroller / buggy reviews are hilarious, I remember reading a corker that gave a rave review to a buggy that had a little LED on it that lit up to tell you that your phone was ringing / you'd received a message. WOW eh?)

With books it feels different - and book bloggers have such a hugely varied opinion on the books they're reviewing that it's always worth digging into other people's blogs to see if they've spotted the same in-joke you have, liked the bits you've liked or hate the bits you really thought sucked.

Again though, you could cast a steely eye over people's book of the week recommendations (ahem) and start to theorise that certain books seem pre-destined to hit that slot, because they've had a huge marketing campaign behind them, because they're hugely well known titles with massive PR machines shoving them into the public eye.

Honesty is key though, and we always look out for blogs by folk who are so obviously passionate about books that they can talk the hind legs off a donkey if you dare to ask them for recommendations for a certain age group / certain set of tastes / books on a particular subject - but are also thoroughly honest (brutally so at times, without being cruel - that's a skill in itself!)

I always (semi-jokingly) said to Charlotte that we'd quit writing the blog, either when our reader figures dipped below 1000 hits a month, we hit a million unique clicks on the blog, or when she became so achingly bored with reviewing books that it became a real chore.

Thankfully none of those things has happened - yet (though a million clicks seems to be creeping ever closer and with a quick bit of mental calculation we'll be there sometime around 2019 when the replicants invade LA) but if we ever did quit, we'd consider what we've built here a job well done, and would definitely miss being involved in the amazing world of children's books even in our own small and fairly insignificant / irrelevant way :)

Christmas in the publishing industry probably starts to gear up sometime around Boxing Day the year before (or so we'd imagine).

Certainly we're long past that red letter day - the day we usually get our first Christmas title to review - and this year once again we'll be bringing you a stunning Booky Advent Calendar full of amazing books to share with your little (and not so little) ones.

What's actually surprised us both this year is not only the sheer number of books we've been sent for review for this year's christmas rundown (and, hah, we're not even done yet by the look of it) but the sheer quality of titles on offer this year. Brand new books that once again prove that children's authors and illustrators are amazing people who can produce stunningly original stories even for the festive season.

We won't start naming names (we'll let you decide just how great these books are once the calendar turns over to December 1st and you see the first Booky Advent Calendar entries popping up). But for us it's felt like this year has been even more amazing than ever, with virtually all of the publishers who are kind enough to send us items for review really pushing the boat out with a spectacular lineup for Q4, the time of year when those all-important christmas lists are being made, and (we hope) loads of kids are sticking books down on their lists with gusto.

We have tried to filter our Advent Calendar list down to titles that are festive (or at least have something to do with Christmas, perhaps even crisp winter snow) and it's actually been a true pleasure not only to read the books but to write about them.

That's fairly unusual these days as Charlotte gets older, and is now (worryingly) even progressing swiftly past MG and early chapter readers onto much more wordy fare.

I remember the books that I craved more than anything else as Christmas Presents...

• Annuals (particularly "funny" comic annnuals) - I just couldn't get enough of them, even the cheesiest TV tie ins (happy memories of those awesome Space 1999 annuals, yes showing my age there I fear!)
• The Guinness Book of Records. Again, an easy win for little me and it's great to see that in an increasingly online world, kids still get a kick out of a big fat encyclopaedic roundup of all the tallest, shortest, thinnest, fattest or fastest record breakers on the planet. 
• Anthologies. I am so happy to see these coming back into fashion. We've seen some absolute corkers this year and it's great to see several this year with contributions from some of our most favourite folk working in kidlit today. 
• Non Fiction. Again, nothing would make me happier as a kid than getting a great non-fiction book about cars or planes, or just something cool from DK, Usborne or the like. 

The lounge, yesterday. Who needs to see the floor anyway..!

I am honestly genuinely surprised sometimes that we are still kickin' ass and taking class when it comes to reading children's books in 2017, 7 years after "Read It, Daddy" began life as an aide-memoire to help me keep track of all the books we were borrowing from the library at the time.

Coming from a background (read: "blaring on about") writing about videogames but finding the whole children's book community far more friendly and far less confrontational and 'up itself' than the games community, reviewing books seemed like a natural step to take.

...And the rest, as they say, is history. Here though are 10 things I really wish I'd known back in 2010 before we really kicked off this crazy and fantastic book blogging journey

1) You will need to kiss every spare square inch of bookshelf space in your house goodbye. Yes, I'm afraid collecting children's books can become something of an obsession, and despite our best efforts to have regular clearouts of books that Charlotte isn't interested in any more, we still find there are way too many "keepers" that we just can't bear to part with. Our own books, by comparison, are increasingly squeezed out to make room for gorgeous, gorgeous kids books instead (particularly non-fiction titles), to the point where both my wife and I have thrown our lot in with Kindles instead just to free up a smidge of space we'd normally occupy with our own paperbacks or hardbacks.

2) You will become increasingly paranoid that you're repeating yourself in reviews. Honestly though, there are only so many ways you can describe a story you've seen umpteen times before in new and exciting ways. Flicking back through old reviews is a dangerous thing to do though, because you'll probably have completely changed your opinion and reassessed a book by the time you return to it a few years later, and hate the very sight of the thing!

3) Introducing yourself as "I'm thingy from SuperAceBookBlog" makes you sound like a complete dork. Sorry, but it really does. Painfully aware of this, but it's still worth doing for those amazing times when people's faces light up and you realise they have actually read something you've written. This goes double if it's an author or an illustrator who you swoon over. See also: Meeting your heroes is a VERY good thing.

4) Family and friends, teachers and work colleagues will glaze over when you proudly talk about your blog. This still happens, even after 7 years of doing this - but as we've said previously, there are those amazing moments when you meet like-minded book folk who really "get" why you do what you do, and not only that, will positively engage with you in conversations about books that can go on for hours and hours. Basically though, if you don't want to get into a long conversation with us, never EVER start off by asking us about books we'd recommend :)

5) Once things kick off, you'll sadly find you start neglecting book shops and libraries. We love book shops, I mean REALLY love book shops and could kiss the genius who thought of putting coffee franchises in book stores. We particularly love our local independent book shops where we live (Mostly Books in Abingdon, you ROCK!)

Of course, the big problem comes when you switch to being a 'grown up' Kindle reader for your own books, and don't need to visit book stores for children's books you slowly start to neglect these wonderful places. Though we have now reached a point where we will schedule time to visit both libraries and book stores just to keep up with all the stuff we miss out on, from publishers who don't send us stuff. So I'd definitely tell my younger book blogging self to keep at it with both book stores and libraries, and support both because you really don't want to lose them for good!

6) You'll find yourself surreptitiously appraising book collections in public places (such as waiting rooms, schools and even at friends' houses!) Again this might just be us, but it's something we're definitely guilty of. It does lead to some cool scenarios where we get to donate books to worthy causes (particularly schools and reading agencies) but it's also not unknown for us to sneak brand new books into tired old collections in waiting rooms or doctor's surgeries when we spot 'em.

7) Your brain will become stuffed with whole bibliographies and catalogues of a particular favourite writer's works. Turning into a walking encyclopaedia of children's books is a good and bad thing though it's not something I expected to happen when we first set out. You start to see patterns in children's books and can usually reel off a whole collection of books that authors and artists have contributed to or worked on, even spotting artist's styles a mile off (which comes in handy when (ahem) they're not credited on a particular book or in a press release!)

8) Likewise, you'll start to develop a fairly short tolerance of similar themes and ideas cropping up again and again and again. There are times when we inwardly groan whenever we see a new version of a classic fairy tale, or a cutesy book about 'friendship' or 'being yourself' or some other squirm-worthy moral message wrapped up in the midst of a children's story. We've probably blogged for way too long on the subject of pirate books, for example - and sometimes I think I'll cry if I see another version of Little Red Riding Hood or Cinderella. Of course, that only means that it's doubly awesome when we see ace original twists and ideas using any of those, in fact those are some of the best reviews to write.

9) You'll become completely frustrated at some of the 'injustices' that go on daily in children's publishing. Everyone likes a good rant, and some of those rants are - to be fair - good points that deserve more debate. Most of our editorials cover fairly controversial subjects raging on in children's books and it's very easy to become embroiled in arguments (which, I should add, are far more good natured than arguments over videogames or movies) over subjects such as 'celebrity' books, the cost of actual books themselves, that utter tummy rubbish "Digital vs Print" argument and the huge imbalances in diversity, gender and pay right across the board in Publishing, just like in any other industry. If you're doing the blogging thing correctly, it's nigh on impossible to stay impartial to all of those things so wade in and don't be frightened to give your opinion, and definitely do not be afraid to shout someone down if they consider bloggers to be second-class journalists (oh if there's one thing that makes our blood boil it's that!)

10) You'll always remember your first back cover or press blurb quote. It's a magical moment when your humble blog ends up being quoted on the back of a well-loved and popular book. We've been pretty lucky in that respect, and it still gives us a huge thrill to see a quote show up in a catalogue or press blurb. As well as the books, that's actually quite a nice reward for the effort involved in maintaining a regular book blog, and shows that someone out there - at least - is reading your hard work!

The 'controversial' 2018 World Book Day List.

I know what you're thinking..."Oh dear, not this again!" and I apologise in advance for the wall of text below. But oh yes, the subject of celebrity children's books doesn't seem to want to go away, and with every publisher keen to find the next David Walliams (confusingly still described as "The Next Roald Dahl" - Who was Roald the "next" of, btw?), it comes as no surprise whatsoever to find the World Book Day 2018 £1 list absolutely 'chock full' of celebrity books.

You can see the books in our header image, and can probably determine all on your own that it's a fairly eclectic mix of titles to suit all tastes, with some of the titles above being penned by folk we'd normally associate with other things (including a TV presenter, a bake show winner, a comedian and a musician).

The arguments have raged over Twitter and on various news websites, even stretching as far as the US where several sites have reported on the list. "Authors slam World Book day Choices" trumpets The Guardian in an article headed by a rather glum looking David Almond, who isn't at all happy about the celebrity book bias in next year's list.

From the perspective of reading and reviewing books (not necessarily an author's perspective, as so far most of the debates I've seen have been a firm "NO THANK YOU VERY MUCH" from Authors), most of the rancour seems to focus around a couple of things...

A) Is the rise in celebrity book publishing shutting out existing and debut authors unfairly?

B)  How much are these people being paid for their 'work' (or more accurately in most cases, the hard work of their illustrators and ghost writers)?

Let's dive in and have a closer look at ten more points that should also be part of the wider debate:

1) Celebrity books are popular, whether we like it or not. 

For better or worse, celebrity books sell - and they sell well. Pretty obvious this one, otherwise publishers just wouldn't bother with them. Children's publishing - just like any other branch of publishing - exists to make money, and regardless of the imagined notions around how that money is used, a great majority of revenue made from the publication of children's books ensures that the publisher stays in business longer, can compete with their peers who will also be signing / publishing celebrity works, and though there's still a lot of contention about what a celebrity will make (money wise as advances or royalties from book sales vs what normal folk will earn) will rage on forever, there's no denying that more books sold (whatever the book), the longer the industry will survive, thrive and grow - which is a GOOD thing, right?

2) There's a huge, HUGE amount of snobbery, cliquey-ness and elitism surrounding children's books and publishing. Not always just from Authors themselves...

It's an ugly truth that will probably earn me a fair old shouting down but oh good god does it ever get really bloody tiresome at times. Most of the snobbery seems to revolve around the perceived notions of what constitutes 'a good book' and normally you only ever see book snobbery and elitism raise their ugly heads whenever one of those fabulous "100 Best Kids Books of All Time" lists is announced in a broadsheet (when newspapers can be bothered to cover kids books at all). They seem to crop up almost quarterly at the moment, so I guess newspaper press about the WBD 2018 list (negative or otherwise) makes for a nice change if nothing else!

It's fair to say that snobbery, cliquey-ness and elitism all exist in practically every other form of media too (and proves to be no less irritating when encountered in those media streams).

But as a good test, ask someone well known to list their top 5 favourite books of all time, and watch them mentally calculate whether they should mention their guilty love of Mills and Boon, or the fact that the last book they read was a surreptitious look at their child's copy of the Beano Annual, and instead do the 'indie kid' thing of listing something so painfully obscure and 'academic' so that they don't look like some sort of ill-read idiot.

Time and again we've seen children's publishing held up as an industry that, more than any other media consumed by kids, has a duty of care to bestow upon its consumers (adults who pay for the books / kids who read the books) to enrich their lives. That is fine and laudable and as it should be, and long term children's authors do not have a problem with this at all - but quite often that enrichment is not seen to be worthwhile unless it's performing some ancillary duty such as (for example) enriching a child's vocabulary or thrusting moral lessons at kids until they sink in and become better people, or covering contentious issues of the day in a firm almost schoolmarmish 'kid friendly' way to hammer home a given message.

In a world obsessed with pushing childhood academic excellence and performance to the point where kids are literally cracking up under the strain, I detest the notion that each and every children's book should always need to be some sort of highbrow moral lesson, or children's authors should be required to fulfil a role that - increasingly - parents and schools seem to no longer want any involvement in.

There will always be room in the children's publishing market for books that really are just there to entertain, perhaps provide a few belly laughs (such as Walliams' various excellent middle grade books) and I think it's fair to say that comedians are unfairly being labelled as the instigators of 'dumbing down' in children's literature. Far from it if you've ever read any of David Baddiel's sharp observational middle grade stuff, which is every bit as sharp as his 'grown up' comedy.

3) The industry needs to be more transparent. No one likes dishonesty, nor to feel they're being 'tricked' out of their hard earned cash.  

This is a biggie and it's clearly what a lot of people would demand on any side of the industry, whether provider or consumer of books. I think this is a huge bone of contention for a lot of folk who love trumpeting on Twitter whenever a celebrity is revealed to be just a 'face and a name' for a book, having not actually contributed anything to the book at all other than some loose-leafed guidance or a cursory nod in the right place.

Can you imagine how the celebrity book debate would pan out if publishers actually had to credit and list whenever a book was extensively ghostwritten, and had to make those credits abundantly clear on the cover of a book?

Would it affect sales? Recent dialogue on Twitter seemed to suggest that people have bought Internet Celebrity Zoella's books in their droves even knowing that she wasn't the actual scribe.

Likewise, in the case of illustrated children's picture books, you have a clear case of certain books actually providing a valuable revenue stream (and that most hated word - exposure) for artists who will undoubtedly do OK out of a celeb book deal, and actually might accrue more work elsewhere (or be given their own deals independently) as a result of a particular book 'doing the numbers' (that's assuming, of course, that publishers ensure that artist is credited somewhere in the book - worth paying heed to that argument, which is still also raging on elsewhere).

Transparency would be great (particularly in press info sent out to reviewers, ahem!) because it would cut through this argument in fairly short order, and I firmly believe that in most cases it wouldn't affect the numbers sold at all.

4) "Authors quit because of celebrity book deals". Excuse me but what the hell...?

This is something I hadn't heard before but again cropped up on Twitter during an evening's debate about this tetchy subject. When book folk tell you that author colleagues have actually quit over there being too many celebrity deals being done, you've got to ask yourself a couple of questions.

A) How could you possibly stop writing if it was your only source of income? What on earth do you fall back on?

B) Why would anyone believe that the celebrity deals mean an absolute end to debut / established authors getting their own publishing deals?

This needs more clarification and definitely feels more like the point Messrs Almond and McGowan were trying to raise in the aforementioned Guardian article.

Perhaps with the industry falling in love with this easy method of generating cash, this cash is not always ploughed into funding or setting deals up for established authors (whose work might have fallen out of favour in recent years) or new / debut authors struggling to get anything out there when new celebrity books are hitting the stands, with a higher level of publicity and point of sale promotion, sometimes perhaps with the same ideas or themes those debut authors have been working on for years (yep, been there, done that!)

There's definitely a point that needs addressing here though, perhaps a debate to be had about the sustainability of a celebrity author / deal vs an established author (as many existing authors have quite rightly said, they're in it for the long haul, they're not just fly-by-nights who want to do this for kicks and giggles for a year or so). Look forward to seeing that one expanded upon if anyone cares to kick it off.

5) Are Ghost Writers now becoming responsible for high levels of 'churn' through celebrity deals? 

There's definitely something in this point, and it's one we're keen to highlight in reviews from time to time. "Book churn" again returns back to and touches on point 2 in our list, where books are perceived to be churned out almost on a production line, all fitting a certain template for whatever's on trend at the moment (and predicting / analysing children's publishing trends is almost as much fun as reading and reviewing children's books in the first place, believe me!)

It is weird sometimes when you're setting up a review schedule for a stack of books that have just arrived, to find that there are so many books by different publishers that eerily follow the same storylines or basic core ideas.

Certainly the industry never shies away from looking for a famous face to attach to a particular trend (must be hugely frustrating to all concerned that Johnny Depp hasn't approached anyone with a fantastic idea for a children's pirate story - but I won't hold my breath that it won't happen) but in most cases these churn books (I think we need to rename them as 'bread and butter' books - as this is what they essentially are to a lot of authors and illustrators) really do show themselves up against titles that definitely go out of their way to innovate, be original and bring something 'new' to the children's publishing table.

6) "Writing for children is a craft that can sometimes take years to learn, perfect and polish. So why do celebrities think they can just steam in and take all the publishing deals overnight?"

I've seen this brought up a couple of times in the debate over World Book day and again this feels like a point worthy of closer inspection. This argument somehow implies that you only have worth as a writer if you've been 'doing it for years' (whether published, unpublished, celebrity or nonentity).

I'm not sure I like that notion or entirely agree with it. If only well established published authors who are a 'safe bet' are to be allowed anywhere near publishing deals, where does the new talent come from? More importantly, where do the original ideas come from - as quite often the industry relies on those 'breakthrough' books by debuts to shake publishing up a bit.

I also don't like, and never have liked the insinuation that there's only ever going to be a certain method or formula that works for children's stories, and you don't get to write for children unless you are willing to 'do the pub circuit' first (it feels like it's a very similar argument raised by bands every time someone shuffles off the latest series of X-Factor with a huge record deal, only to become a complete nobody 6 months down the line in most cases when everyone's tuned in to whatever passes as reality TV nowadays instead).

Some have pointed out that the negative reaction to this year's list smacks of writers becoming very 'dog in the manger' about their craft, perhaps even elitist and snobbish themselves. We have read enough books to see that the 'book churn' mentioned above doesn't just happen with celebrity authors or ghost writers.

Well established writers obviously have their 'bread and butter' books. Sometimes there are some pretty stale ideas endlessly recycled, and an awful lot of terrible children's books feel like they're written to fulfil an obligation to a long-running contract perhaps.

The perceived agreement that (as a loose example) because "Writer A has written countless books in the past and had them published, each and every book they turn out from thereon will be worth its weight in gold" is sadly not the case, not even with some of the biggest and best (and even nicest) folk working in kidlit today.

Point summary: We need new talent in the industry all the time, and we definitely always need new ideas, in whatever form and it's not always exclusively celebrity books that are putting their foot through that innovation, originality and progress.


7) Authors become celebrities through their books. Should we start berating them for their successes too?

As far as the Guardian article lays into celebrities as authors, it doesn't seem to lay into celebrity authors. It seems to suggest that there's something rotten afoot in the industry because a larger proportion of the WBD books (the Marvel / comics deal is something else entirely left for another debate) are penned by celebrities, but doesn't seem to shy away from suggesting that it would have been better to have wheeled in a few well known authors in their place.

This seems to instantly cut through the argument that 'better paid celebrities with huge advances' are putting the brakes on the industry. Surely higher profile authors should be tarred with the same brush by that measure (how much do you think Philip Pullman got in advance of "The Book of Dust" and its sequels? I'll give you a clue: Add together the advances of every debut author with a book out this year and double it and you'll probably be close to about a 10th at an ill-educated guess).

Author success is just as good for the industry as increased book sales - in more than just fiscal ways. To many children and adults, authors are becoming like pop stars. The rise and rise and rise in success of book festivals is a clear indication that people not only want to read their books, but want to connect with their favourite authors and illustrators in personal ways - at book signings, events, author workshops etc. Each and every one of these folk started out as a debut author once, and needed (perhaps in some cases even relied on) the children's book industry existing and being hugely successful, so money pumped into the industry from celebrity book sales surely has to have a knock on effect to that?

8) More debate is required around the dreaded 'greed / money' thing at every turn in these types of debate. 

One thing all unpublished / struggling / debut authors are told in no uncertain terms (quite often by well-established authors themselves) when it comes to children's publishing is "Do not go into it for the money" - And yet it feels like there's a certain element of the green eyed monster coming out in this debate whenever there's mention of the sort of anticipated sales / advances / money being made by celebrity books.

No one is under any illusion that if you're lucky enough to snag your first publishing deal you'll be able to quit your job the next day. Most authors and illustrators will need to work for donkeys years to get to that stage and will require a lot of extra support and other income streams being there (Oh god, wouldn't it be an amazing world if creative folk could genuinely start out on day one and make a comfortable or workable living from their craft!)

 If the crux of the debate is that "It's not fair because Celebrity A got a £1 MEEELION QUID Advance for their ghost-written POS when I only got about 2 grand tops from my book" then that kinda sucks.

That's got naff all to do with a 'quality of books / duty of care to literacy' argument at all.

Secondary point summary: Show me a well established writer who would turn down ghost writing for a celebrity and I'll show you someone who's willing to put their money where their mouth is, principles-wise.

9) Celebrities definitely need to be drummed into being more interested in promoting literacy ideals / national campaigns / 'extra-curricular' beneficial work outside their own publishing deals. 

This is definitely another area I'd like to see more clear evidence and debate on. Many celebrities have become hugely active and a positive force for good when it comes to child literacy, reluctant reader engagement or providing their time and endorsement to worthwhile reading programmes and projects.

Many don't, and could do so much more to enhance their reputations as 'authors' (if they even care about that stuff and aren't doing it just for the dosh, obviously).

If they put some time and effort into being faces or voices for these schemes, it could really change the whole dynamic around stuff like WBD.

Maybe that should become part of any book deal, that the celebrity has to be prepared to do 'community service' as part of a publishing deal, to ensure that they put in the time and do their bit for charitable programmes to pay it forward if you like.

That would be cool and that would definitely get you a big green tick on my 'good egg' list. Gotta be a better way to spend your time than pouting and flashing your bum on Instagram, surely?

10) Last but by no means least, these books are not for YOU (snooty grown ups I mean!)

We saved the best bit till last as so far, no one seems to have bothered asking kids what they think of the list. So we did a very quick, extremely informal poll around the playground with a bunch of middle grade aged kids from Charlotte's school, showing them a selection of new and upcoming books by a mix of authors and illustrators (some celebrity, most not). We did not use the WBD list as we didn't want to pollute the poll for kids who might have already heard their adults ranting about them - these were books picked from our recent review stack at random.

Which do you think were the books that got kids the most excited?

A) The next book in a successful long-running series (by a non-celebrity children's author).

B) Books with cool cover illustrations that looked visually amazing.

C) Books with a really good 'hook' blurb on the back cover, and an exciting sounding story.

D) A book by that bloke who won X-Factor three years ago, who now fancies himself as a children's author "because his kids really love his stories" (ghost written or otherwise).

E) A book about a mighty girl hero by someone who retired from athletics a couple of years ago.

F) A new book by an author that kids were familiar with (not a 'celebrity' - well not in the Guardian article sense of the word).

Can you guess? If you answered mostly A,  B and C you hit the nail right on the head, with F also cropping up a fair amount as kids develop their own favourite author tastes completely independently (who'd have thunk it, eh? Kids knowing things about books. ).

In the cases where D and E were picked, it was because (in the case of C) the book had a drop dead gorgeous cover (usually by, hah, an uncredited artist!) or (in the case of E) because someone really was heavily into athletics and sport, and instantly knew the author and just wanted to read the book because it might have some cool stuff about running in it.

So there you go. Analysis of trends always seems to come from the adult perspective but who's asking the kids? (Well, we are!)

Personally, with more of an interest in seeing the list moving beyond 'booky folk' into a more general level of interest, I actually feel that the World Book Day list has achieved a fairly good mix of titles, importantly with some that will lure in reluctant readers (whether because of or in spite of the celebrity books) but above all else, it's probably going to be the most high profile WBDs there has been in a number of years, so all the better, surely?

If only we could drop the snobbery and pretence, up the level of clarity and transparency - but above all definitely continue the debate without resorting to too much nastiness or name-calling (I got out of writing about videogames for this exact reason, I'd hate to see that sort of thing dragged into kidlit, truly).

Bear in mind that - as an 'outsider' to the industry, one who does not rely on it for an income, this is purely an interested party / consumer perspective of some of the issues that have been raised, or are abundantly clear in this thing. It's very easy to understand why children's authors are absolutely furious about this issue, and take an entirely different view of the WBD list.

Additional reading on this debate - tackling the issue from different perspectives: See also Matt Imrie's (Matt the Librarian) excellent article on this over on Teen Librarian, which I read very soon after I'd put this article together and realised covers a lot of the points I've made above (in a slightly less ranty fashion). Matt knows what he's talking about! http://teenlibrarian.co.uk/2017/10/02/a-few-thoughts-on-world-book-day-2018/

Also, don't miss Jo Cotterill's excellent blog post on the subject, which addresses some of the points raised about elitism - and a really good justification on why 'celeb' authors really wind real children's authors up: https://jocotterill.com/2017/10/04/what-a-childrens-author-does/

Finally, please also check out the blog post from Kenilworth Books, offering an independent book store's view of the WBD choices and the whole 'celeb as author' thing: kenilworthbooks.co.uk/talk-to-the-go…

September 21st is "International Hobbit Day", a celebration of the original publication of J.R.R Tolkien's amazing piece of work.

We narrowly missed the deadline but I didn't want it to pass without saying something about this incredible book, mainly because it was one of the first 'proper' books I read as a kid, and one that definitely played a huge part in making me want to read for pleasure.

Stretching back to junior school, I would have been quite a bit younger than Charlotte is now - in fact without trying to sound too smug or precocious about it, the main reason I ended up reading this book at the tender age of 5 was because I was lucky enough to have an incredible teacher who, these days, would probably have been disciplined for what she did.

Miss Cox was my class teacher and English teacher, and recognised early on that I was struggling with my reading. Not because I had problems reading, I just had problems reading the sort of stuff I was supposed to be reading at that age.

Most kids in the class were beginning their first reading journeys, years before phonics were a thing. I'd been taught to read in a pretty harsh way. Without going into detail I should have actually been put off reading for life at a time when children are beginning to first find their love of stories and tales.

Miss Cox realised why I wouldn't read classroom books, and switched me onto "The Hobbit". I still have no idea whether this was an experiment in 'bringing me down a peg' or whether she actually did so because she somehow knew this book would appeal. The effect on me though was electric. The copy had the cover you see in the article above, and even the cover made me want to find out more.

Separate to the other children going through the Ladybird books and "Peter and Jane / Janet and John" books she encouraged me to read the book in class, and (unheard of at the time) let me take the copy home to read there too.

I did exactly that, in fact I read it through 3 times before I'd let her have it back. It became a subject of discussion and it also became part of projects I was given in class based around reading, to the point where I felt so familiar with Bilbo and Middle Earth I had to voraciously track down and read just about everything else I could get my hands on in the fantasy genre (including, of course, the rest of Tolkien's books). Thank gawd that back then libraries were still commonplace, both in school and outside of school as we had little or no money to buy books with back then.

All in all, Miss Cox started a lifelong love of books and reading that has stayed with me and I now pass on to my daughter, often with the same books that I was won over by all those years ago.

Why "The Hobbit" though? For me it was the fact that Tolkien, for all the various criticisms levelled at his work over the years, could build book worlds like no other. He drew on his own experiences of the local countryside and places he visited to bring an air of believability to fantasy realms. Likewise with his characters, he introduced all of the human strengths and weaknesses into the mix, even with the non-humans. Vanity, covetousness, hope, resilience - so many qualities extend across the amazing folk found in his books that everyone can identify themselves, or people they know, amongst the likes of Bilbo, the dwarves or perhaps even Gandalf himself.

I still love the book and still treat myself to a re-read quite often, and it always seems to manage to feel fresh and vibrant, original and yet still has the ability to delight and surprise me just as it did at the tender age of 5.

I hope one day if you've never read it, you discover it and can get a taste of what I mean from it too. In the meantime, I am always indebted to Miss Cox and many other amazing teachers out there who fully understand, nurture and encourage a love of stories and books in their pupils, far beyond league tables and statistics-driven expectations.

Once again it looks like a book-to-film adaptation has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

William Golding's savage novel "Lord of the Flies" is about to get the gender-flip reboot-till-it-bleeds Hollywood treatment, with a female cast (don't worry, I'm sure they'll work a 'token' middle aged white male in there somewhere).

Internet reactions to the news ranged from "Lord of the whuh?" to "What the hey, Girls don't even HAVE flies!" to "Here's a zillion other novels out there that would make a better movie".

It's with that last thought that we'll stick for this editorial, and also stray away from the path a little to talk about some of the biggest movie franchises of recent years - and movies that have become lauded as classics, usually featuring highly in any top 100 rundowns any commercial channel sees fit to trot out as authoritative from time to time.

Franchise is the key word here. Hollywood, particularly the big studios and even some of the smaller independent ones, rely on happy little folk returning to the box office again and again for something that's mostly identical to what has gone before, with one or two tweaks here and there.

With few exceptions, it seems that most summer blockbusters are falling into a serialised formula that fails to spark much in the way of inspiration or imagination, pandering instead to popcorn-fed folk who just want to see the latest bangs, booms and CGI wizardry rather than worry too much about storytelling.

Perhaps then this is the reason that the books that we book folk would LOVE to see turned into movies actually never will. As crass and ill-judged as rebooting Lord of the Flies with a full-on gender-swap sounds, it's almost a safe choice for movie audiences who will be looking for three core things from such a flick. An idyllic setting far removed from the world we know, a gloriously gorgeous cast of stick thin model-like girls (I cannot wait to see how they cast "Piggy" in this - anything over a size 8 and I'll be genuinely surprised) and of course a smidgeon of uber-violence and over-the-top bloodletting.

It'd be ridiculous to make such predictions this early on in the production but keeping a close eye on IMDB as the cast is announced (nothing so far, but that's assuming they even stay with the same title - I would not be at all surprised to see that as the first thing changed) I'm willing to lay even money on at least two or three of those predictions (plus of course the middle aged white dude thing) coming true.

Elsewhere in book-to-film adaptations that have been baking my noodle, I'm still completely baffled why we're getting a "Ready Player One" movie instead of a "Snow Crash" one. Spielberg's treatment of RPO is all but out of the blocks and ready to make your ears hurt with over-the-top combat sequences, CGI wizardry and of course the main bit everyone will be watching it for, a ton of in-jokes and pop culture references that probably go beyond what the book managed (I make no secret of the fact that I thought RPO was bitterly disappointing after all the hype).

Snow Crash was in development, but looks like it's been quietly moved to a siding while the bigger, bolder, brasher movie hits the theatres first. Which is a damned shame because (IMHO) Snow Crash is not only the better book, but would definitely make a far better movie if Joe Cornish can somehow miraculously string it all together.

Book-to-movie adaptations will always be hugely divisive. I always think back to a line from an old X-Files episode where The Smoking Man blandly states "I'd rather read the worst book ever written than watch the best movie ever made", a quote that I'd mostly stand by if it wasn't for those odd diamonds in the rough, movies that have stretched far beyond the original material's storytelling and scope. Sadly I feel that there are now so many atrociously bad decisions going on in the movie world that we're way too far beyond being able to trust that any new book to film adaptation won't still have a board of overfed shareholders in whatever massive communications company is fronting the cash for it really controlling the artistic direction of a project anyway.

Now the long summer holidays are officially over, it's time to get back into the usual humdrum  routine of life that takes over when Charlotte goes back to school, and both my wife and I go back to work with none of those lovely days off in between to spend with our daughter.

One thing we both noticed over the summer holidays was how much time we had in the day for lots of different things we normally get no time for (including, of course, a LOT of reading,  baking or crafting, lazing around in a sunny fields drawing or going out for the day to somewhere different and interesting).

The other thing we noticed over the summer was how the usual evening bedtime book ritual went straight out of the window, as Charlotte would inevitably go to bed later (with no school to get up for) and be too tired (or it would be too late) for a book.

This is pretty unusual for us, normally both my wife and I stick to the bedtime routine no matter what - but in the summer months it becomes nigh on impossible even with the best double glazing in the world, and the best blackout blinds to shut out the summer while other kids are out playing and making a racket (hence the later bedtimes).

Now and again I would sneak a book in, because I started to worry that this was the beginning of the end for our read-aloud sessions, and the very thought of that made me completely paranoid that this was in some way signalling a move into the "Terrible Tweens" when your lovely 9 year old transforms almost overnight into a stroppy tantrum-fuelled pre-teen with none of their usual interests in stuff like books.

Thankfully my fears seemed to be unfounded. Whatever book I chose for bedtime (picture book or a chapter or two of proper middle grade chapter book stuff) seemed to still be well received, though of course kids are the past-masters at procrastination, particularly when the alternative to a bedtime book is bedtime and sleeptime itself.

Reading aloud to older kids isn't easy at all, in fact if you can get through an entire story without at least two or three questions or sighs of "Oh that's ridiculous" then you're very lucky indeed, but it was really important to once again get that interaction and bonding time back over a good book.

It also gave us more time to catch up on the review pile. Quite often now in the course of reviewing books we are reading separately, then discussing the book's merits or shortcomings before the review is written. This is a real change from the old days when we'd sit down with the reading pile, work through them and start making written or mental notes as each one was completed.

Reading a bedtime book regularly again also seems to help offer something of a calming influence over Charlotte, particularly on days where she's been hyperactive or difficult, stroppy or just plain unwilling to do anything other than vegetate over screen time (which again is extremely difficult to be strict about in the school hols when you've just about done everything you can think of doing, have spent a small fortune doing it but know that screen time might just offer up a few moments peace if nothing else - hate that though!) Yes, amazing as it seems, no child is perfect and as 9 years old turns into 10, I can only see there being more of a clash of opinions over just about everything. All part and parcel of the parenting process though and I'm sure it's something that many of you have already been through yourselves.

It had me thinking that there ultimately may well come a day when Charlotte really doesn't want bedtime books any more and as time passes, it feels like kids may reach that age younger and younger every year.

I don't know many friends or relatives who have bothered carrying on reading to their kids beyond 6 or 7 years old and that just seems way too young to cut it out. I think it speaks more of the fact that parents are desperate to claw back 'me time' in the evenings after a long day at work, rather than a reluctance on the part of their children to be read to at bedtimes though.

Would love to hear from other book folk, parents and story fans who love a read aloud session at bedtimes on whether they've also reached any of the same conclusions with their own kids.

I really wish I could brush up on my French skills. I did pretty badly in school, retaining just enough knowledge to get me into hot water with any native French-speaker but if there's one real reason I wish I'd learned more French, it's to be able to fully enjoy French children's books.

At the moment I've been reading a translated version of "Le Petit Loup Rouge" (The Little Red Wolf) by Amelie Flechais, which is easily one of the most stunning children's books I've seen this year. Obviously we've only just seen it in the UK (actually the US, as I'm pretty sure it hasn't officially been released in the UK yet - publishers, get on that pronto!) but the French have had the book for a while (since 2014 in fact).

Sadly, this is the case for an awful lot of French books, once again driving my desire to learn more of the language. Of course it might not seem important for picture book fans to be able to thoroughly read and translate what is largely an illustrated children's book, but it does make a world of difference in understanding the subtleties of the language, and what's often lost in even the best translations to English.

We've read through a few French-only books before, most notably "La Visite De Petite Mort" by Kitty Crowther. Some of Kitty's astonishingly brilliant books have been translated, but so far not this one - which is a crying shame.

You see over the channel in France and Belgium, children's authors and illustrators are still gloriously in love with the darkly tinged children's stories that we seem to have lost all taste for (at least editorial taste, I'm pretty sure there's still a huge consumer demand for darker children's stories that aren't all fluffy bunny wunnies or cute kitties).

Taking "Le Petit Loup Rouge" as a fine example of a darker children's book that draws on the original Little Red Riding Hood fairytale, this is not only a stunning book to look at, it's a version of the story that pours on a dark and almost funereal atmosphere.

The main protagonist, the most adorable red-hooded wolf you'll ever meet in a book, doesn't always have a smooth ride as the story unfolds. He is tricked, he becomes victim to a rather horrid (though seemingly adorable) little girl, and he cries bucketloads when it seems all is lost.

As much as we celebrate books that deal with children's emotional states, we don't see books that tap into their fears, anxieties and concerns in a constructive way.

Perhaps there's a misapprehension that darker children's stories are too disturbing for our cotton-wrapped delicate little wallflowers who are never told 'no' and aren't frequently confronted with situations that put them outside their comfort zone.

We've championed darker books on the blog before, always careful to draw a line between what's comfortably acceptable when it comes to darker children's stories, and what's clearly beyond their age group.

It feels almost like literature is the one area where parents are overtly protective of what their children consume. Parents seem happy to let their kids loose on age inappropriate movies or videogames and yet won't let them read books that they feel are 'too old' for them. I wonder why this is? Again, with the caveat of stating categorically that it's pretty flipping obvious when something's going to be disturbing or too much for your child, but it does feel like there's an odd imbalance here.

The last point of this week's editorial clangs on about that sorest of sore subjects for me, that bloody formulaic word count / spread count / "All Picture Books Have To Be This Way Or GTFO" thing. Again, it's probably sour grapes to keep harping on about this point, but in several recent examples of digging into French picture books and comics, it seems our lovely Gallic cousins across the channel don't share the same inhibitions when it comes to wordier and longer children's books that push beyond that 32 page / 12 spread / 500 word limit.

Again, referring back to "Le Petit Loup Rouge", this isn't a book that's over and done with in such a neat little timeline. It's a book that ditches the laconic and abrupt storytelling tropes we're seeing more and more of in UK and US publishing, taking its time to deliver a wholly satisfying reading experience that perhaps does need to be chipped away at over the course of several bedtimes, but feels all the more immersive, satisfying and enjoyable for it. It almost feels like there's more consideration for the creative process, and less for 'let's make it fit, let's make it tidy, let's make it economically viable'.

J'adore French books at the moment (again, pardon my terrible, terrible language skills) and I'm beginning to think that the more books we introduce to UK / US readers from right across the world, translated or otherwise, the better off and better read we'll all be.

This week's ReadItTorial is a huge and humble THANK YOU to you, our readers, for making July one of the most astonishing months in our entire blog history.

I usually don't get too hung up on our blog stats month by month but from time to time I have a quick look in the control panel to see how many unique hits we've garnered during a given month.

A couple of things surprised me...

1) July was incredible, I mean really incredible. Normally our unique hits hover around the 15-20k mark (and we do really only measure unique visitors to the blog, or at least whatever Google counts as unique clicks or sessions)

In July our hits topped out at 31,109 which is a new record for the blog for a single month's stats. WOOOH Go you!!

2) We're fast approaching ¾ of a million clicks. Again, this is something I never ever expected to happen to this blog, so again kudos to you wonderful readers for making this the most successful web thing I've ever been a part of.

Obviously these stats are pretty small potatoes when it comes to comparing against 'the big guns' out there in parenting / kidlit but it still made us feel very proud and very happy. We hope you like what we do, and will continue to come back for more.

So yep, a gigantic super-massive THANK YOU once again. You all ROCK!

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?

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.

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.

James O'Brien, LBC Presenter after the Manchester bombing on Monday night

When we woke up after a fairly fitful night's sleep on Tuesday morning this week, it was again to the most horrific news. A terrorist attack at a music event in Manchester left 22 dead with the majority of that number children who'd attended the concert.

I was left numb by the news, but like most parents who probably woke up to the same thing, felt like the only thing to do at home was carry on with the preparations for an ordinary school day.

We had to mute the radio (we usually listen to Radio 2 every morning as we get ready for work and school) and of course any change in behaviour is always picked up on by Charlotte who started asking questions. What had happened, who was involved? Why would anyone do something so horrible?

How do you even begin to try and explain what would drive someone to do that to other human beings in the name of anything, any cause, religious or otherwise?

We had a lot of reasons to try and mute as much of the news as we ourselves are going to a concert in a couple of weeks time. Normally I'd be on edge anyway (I hate huge crowds) but when I saw James O'Brien's statement broadcast on LBC on that morning, his words summed up exactly how I'd be feeling watching my daughter going to her first ever gig - an occasion that should be one of those milestone moments in their young lives. Like James I can't begin to imagine what it must be like when the evening flips on its head and becomes a milestone for the most horrific reasons.

Newsround (that pinnacle of informative youth news broadcasting) put out an extremely informative and perfectly pitched piece of video that was designed specifically for parents who wanted some way of showing their children what had happened, without the hate-filled fearmongering and horrific image sharing that polluted just about every other news outlet.

I think the other thing I saw being shared the most on the day was a quote from (of all people) Fred Rogers, that pinnacle of US clean-cut awesomeness whose mother once said this about harrowing news...

“Always look for the helpers,” she’d tell me. “There’s always someone who is trying to help.” I did, and I came to see that the world is full of doctors and nurses, police and firemen, volunteers, neighbors and friends who are ready to jump in to help when things go wrong.

Those 'helpers' were everywhere after this event. Taxi drivers who turned off the meters to ferry people away from danger. Hotels that took people in. A homeless guy who was in the thick of things helping victims and nursing one woman as she lay dying. Normal everyday people doing everything they could to make sure people were safe, were looked after. For all the acts of hatred in the world there are many many more of kindness and hope, and that's really what I'll be telling Charlotte every time something like this happens.

There is good in the world, and there are good people, and those are the people you should believe in and have faith in. Don't pay any attention to the hatemongers who crawled out from under their rocks and were duly given public forums to peddle their worthless messages, pay attention to the good people who meekly stood by and soberly did their best to help out.