We have entered the twilight zone, that time in a book blogger's "career" when their youngling has reached peak fussiness and starts to become more and more critical of certain books.

When we started out, I made a point of telling everyone that our blog was nothing without C's opinions and input, and that still holds true today. But those who have a "Tweenager" at home will know and understand what it's like when they start laying the groundwork for the concrete foundations of cynicism that will see them through their teens, and well into their early 20s.

With picture books, C has already got to the stage where they have to be nigh-on blisteringly brilliant to get more than 3 out of 5 (though we 'internally' mark books this way, we now opt to summarise our joint opinions of a book in a single quotable sentence. Marking stuff with numbers never worked for us, though it's good to see that it does for others).

So we got our post as usual, and as we gleefully ripped open the parcels (as we still do, yes even after nearly 10 years of this game it's still like Christmas Morning every time the parcel post arrives) we came across a pair of books that made us pause for a moment, and consider just how the publishing industry actually works internally.

One was a non-fiction title, one a picturebook story for younger readers.

Both books were undeniably nicely put together. Both had their accompanying press sheets claiming them to be the "next best thing" but both were, for want of a better word, hugely derivative of other titles.

C takes these things almost personally and it's cute of her to point out that in the huge number of rejections I've received for my own writing, someone somewhere read the manuscripts for these two books and thought they'd fly off shelves (or at least trickle off).

She had a quite massive, spectacular and surprisingly well informed rant about this. We talked about the books we'd had so far this year, and how many have been truly stunning and more than worthy of our "Book of the Week" slot - but there were also the 'also ran' books that would never see an awards ceremony, never sell in huge numbers, never feature in the Telegraph's children's book roundup or find themselves nestling between the pages of the Mighty Phoenix Comic in their Book slot.

With both books the real problem was that C is not exactly your average book consumer. We get sent a lot of books to review, and I had to point out that this is part of the reason she feels that certain books are not original, and just tread on already well-trodden ground. If you're relatively well read in kidlit you'll understand how the industry works a little better than C. Book trends come and go, as do book fairs, as do publishers who get non-fiction written to order to address a current topic-du-jour.

Non-fiction books arriving in themed clusters is easy to explain away then, but what of fiction?

We were really puzzled by a recent picture book which the press release claimed to be from a debut author illustrator described as "the next big thing by Bookseller Magazine". Fair enough, we thought. But diving into the book it was absolutely apparent that the story, the set-up and even a couple of cheeky art cues weren't so much of an homage, more a direct lift from a well loved children's classic.

Given that most agents will have a universal knowledge of children's books we really couldn't understand how this particular book could even get past the pitch stage.

C was absolutely furious about it and refused to have anything to do with the book until after a bit of gentle coaxing we read through, and though there are close links between this book and the well-loved classics, there's a different core message and perhaps just enough charm and appeal that someone out there will find this book, read it, love it and it will become their daily bedtime read.

That's really what it's all about, but phew, trying to explain that to C was tough. She has a very similar view with movies now (possibly my bad influence) and really doesn't get on well with the constant stream of reboots, remakes or Disney Live Action stuff that's going on at the moment while a zillion other IPs that would make stunning movies go largely unnoticed. Trying to find a polite way to phrase "This got made, and a zillion other books with better ideas than this got binned" but the upside of having C get tougher and tougher (and even more brutally honest than she was as a younger kid) is that you can bet your butts that if we praise a book, it's worth that praise.

In the industry it's all about offsetting risk and increasing sales. Risking putting a book into production that is original, perhaps breaks a few of the well-established picture book rules, perhaps has an edgy art style unlike other children's picture books - these all increase the likelihood that the book will end up as next week's Poundland shelf fillers (oh there's a whole other blog post about the stuff we see in Poundland's children's book sections sometimes by the way, CRIMES I SAY, CRIMES!!)

I think we got to the point in the end but finding picture books that really feel fresh, vibrant and original (if anything can ever be truly original) feels like it's getting tougher, or maybe it's just us with a near-ten-year-old view of the whole shebang perhaps? Anyone else out there feel similar? You know what to do, comment or tweet us @readitdaddy and share your brains!

"Your book's rubbish!" "No, yours is!"

Well we weren't actually going to do any ReadItTorials in December - but this one was too juicy to pass up.

It all started out with a #notbitteratall Tweet, as the subjects for our ReadItTorials often do...

One of the things I've noticed about being a writer of children's books that children actually like and buy is that your books are resolutely missed out of Children's Books of The Year round-ups in newspapers #notbitter #okslightly

https://twitter.com/Baddiel/status/1068901419158261760

...and swiftly descended into another round of Kidlit's favourite game where celebrity authors are rounded up and given a swift cattle-prodding, Twitter style.

It most definitely had us musing about how those "Book of the Year" roundups are actually drawn up, how the winning books are decided - but again whether there's actually some fire to back up David's smoke. Are Celebrity Books roundly ignored in BOTY lists purely because of the growing stigma attached to them?

We've reviewed quite a few of David's books in our Chapter Book roundups. None have ever really made our "Book of the Week" slot and none have troubled our Chapter Book of the Year slot either (mostly because we haven't actually been boxing out our Chapter Book coverage for that long). Yet C has enjoyed them, and I've particularly enjoyed the family-focused observation David makes in his stories.

The thing is, my initial interpretation of the tweet was that it sounded like the peacock-like ramblings of someone who's rather more concerned about book sales and the kudos (and increase in book sales) that winning a coveted newspaper-style Book of the Year award would bring.

David was rounded on by many authors in the business who took the tweet that way, but also launched into missives about celebrity books in general - not just laying into the quality of the writing (or ghost writing!) in most cases, but also stating that being an award-winning comedy writer does not automatically give you some divine privilege to become a well respected children's author.

Yet, hah, as we write this, a great many comedians and comedy writers are writing children's picture book or middle grade fiction. Why that specific age group? Are there comedians who can cut it writing for YA? Have any tried to pen graphic novels? Odd that it's a very specifically focused age group, innit?

Female comedians seem to do well writing for any age group. In fact female celebrities in general tend to publish to the adult market more than kids. Again that's quite an interesting nugget of fact that has absolutely nothing to do with the real focus of this blog post.

Most comedy writers want to make you laugh, whatever your age. They want that divine moment where their viewer or reader can wholly identify with, and find the humour in the situation or thing that the comedian is describing.

And like anyone who has a career, comedians want to be good enough at what they do to continue doing it. I would assume that most of them apply this same effort to their children's literature so again you're back to imagining that what Dave was actually having a dig at wasn't kidlit, but the newspaper awards. Either that or he has a gigantic massive ego that he feels isn't being fed well enough, recognition wise.

On the subject of comedy Daves, during the whole Twitterthon another nugget of info emerged that was quite spectacularly breathtakingly ill informed if true. This time, allegedly from David Walliams, the celebrity author most authors (and probably celebrity authors) love to hate / envy / allege is ghostwritten (delete as appropriate).


This one was from Blue Peter Award-winning author Gareth P. Jones (who also blogged about Baddiel's tweet).

Everyone feels hard done by, even the celebs. The other day someone in the know told me that Walliams doesn't feel like his publisher does much in the way of marketing for his books.

https://twitter.com/jonesgarethp/status/1069522998330302464

Just let that one sink in for a moment. Yes, the same David Walliams whose gigantic Point of Sale displays appear like a blight across the frontages and shelf spaces of just about every book shop you can think of, who has appeared no less than seventy billion times on just about every TV and Radio show talking about his book, and whose promo copies were sent out to grateful bloggers right across the land...oh no, wait, that last bit was a complete fabrication, I do apologise. We never get DW's books to review, I mean why bother getting lowly bloggers to promote them when they'll sell in their millions anyway eh? #NotBitter #onlyslightly

In a roundabout way I'm getting to the point, albeit very slowly. Anyone who has even the most peripheral involvement with the children's publishing industry and the many artists, authors, designers, writers, ghost-writers, translators, PRs, publishers, tea persons etc cannot fail to notice that there's something that most book folk have in common.

They're lovely, they're hugely supportive of each other, hell they have the utmost respect for their own authors and illustrators as well as other publishers' authors and illustrators too. In fact, the authors and illustrators themselves largely seem to respect each other and each other's craft.

Cast your eyes over Twitter whenever big awards like the Carnegies or the Kate Greenaway awards, the Blue Peter awards, the Costa awards etc etc are announced and the first thing you'll notice isn't a load of authors moaning that they didn't make the list, it's a load of folk congratulating those that have.

It starts even before publication for most folk too. Those of us still putting out manuscript after manuscript don't fire off angry tweets if one of our crit group, or writing compadres gets a book deal. We're there too, celebrating their successes, retweeting and writing about their launches, reviewing or covering their books and perhaps hoping one day we'll see something of our own in print, let alone winning any awards, annual or otherwise. Publication isn't some deity-granted right, nor is winning an award (we could get really into the grist of why we barely raise an eyelid when it comes to most annual book awards, particularly newspaper-backed ones, but that's a blog for another day).

Though obviously most celebrities are busy folk who are spinning a number of plates in the air, many appear on Twitter on a daily basis, yet barely seem to engage with other kidlit folk.

So I guess at some point David Baddiel might want to take a look at, perhaps even engage with the children's publishing industry as a whole rather than moaning that his particular glory barge doesn't quite carry enough privilege because of his celebrity status.

Good books are good books, and even though we've enjoyed his work (and a great many kids and adults have too), I can think of a billion and one other books that would be (and in fact have quite rightly been named as) Book of the Year material.

It's pretty much as simple as that.

Once again we're preparing our wares!

It's the time of year where the publishing industry traditionally enters complete overdrive, in order to promote and push books they'd really love you to buy your little ones over the Holiday / Festive period.

We were recently contacted by the lovely folk at Bushel & Peck Books who have recently taken on a huge task over in the US - to ensure that kids from all social backgrounds and circumstances get access to dazzlingly brilliant books.

David and Stephanie Miles have a fantastic idea to address the fact that for every 300 kids in certain poorer neighbourhoods stateside, there's only one book owned. That's a pretty shocking statistic, particularly when you consider it's A) very similar here in the UK and B) like the UK, stateside library services are also suffering from cuts and a gradual decline as other services are seen as more important in poorer communities.

Bushel and Peck's Kickstarter is live, and we think it's a cause worth supporting so hop on over there and give David and Stephanie some support, whichever side of the pond you live on.

Here at ReadItDaddy we're about to pack up our review copy surplus again for our Annual Book Sale in aid of our local church's charities. We always have a lot of fun doing this, but more than that we get a huge, huge kick out of seeing kids walking away with a prized book that they may not have been able to afford otherwise. We mark our books down accordingly, and though the aim is to raise money for the charities mentioned, it's definitely hugely satisfying when a child comes along with a bit of their pocket money, or parents on a low income come along to pick up a bargain or two - hopefully getting as much enjoyment out of those wonderful books as we do.

There's a clear link between children having ready access to their own books at home and their development / learning journeys in school being positively affected by this. Something that's been charted and talked about for many years in fact. Both my wife and I know that reading aloud to our daughter means that she can cope with the language and literacy workload at school when others in her class / year are still struggling. But it should never have to be about how much money you have, or whether you can afford books - books should be available to all kids in copious amounts, and our library services (who are often the only places kids can go and grab a massively diverse range of books) should be supported and well funded.

Do drop along to our book sale if you're in Abingdon on Saturday 1st December 2018 - at 35 Ock Street! We'd love to see you!

We're just over the half way mark of the "Writing for Children" course I've been attending over the last few weeks, and the last couple of weeks have been about writing for specific genders. 
This is something I feel very strongly about (so strongly, in fact, that I may have embarrassed myself horribly in the "Writing for Girls" session when I had a very long and extended rant about the marketed cynicism surrounding the book "Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls" and a particular YouTube video that still infuriates me to this very day (there's a blog post about it here, if you want to know why I found it particularly annoying, even as a champion of feminism and removing gender skew from kid lit).
Our tutor, Nicky is an extremely talented writer and teacher, and took great pains in both lessons to point out that - whether we like it or not, and regardless of our own beliefs and strong views on the subject - there is still a strong, visible and in some cases actively promoted divide between stories for girls and stories for boys.

It's particularly prevalent in middle grade children's writing (though, arguably still evident in preschool, picture book and later in YA kidlit too) and I am still annoyed about it, and still want to know why.

It gets weirder once you start scraping away the 'traditions' in publishing, and even if you have a fairly open mind to the way book marketing works, it's still easy to become entirely disillusioned with   children's publishing allowing skewed gender marketing to continue pretty much unchecked.

Some authors purposely and expressly write for specific genders. I'm intrigued by the fact that at middle grade, there seems to be a majority of male writers writing humour - and a majority of female writers writing books that have strong girl appeal.

During the class we were given exercises in writing for both genders, something I struggled with as I have a daughter who will quite happily read stuff that very few boys would touch with a 20ft barge pole...

Nicola again rightly pointed out that children's publishing is a business, and the points raised in class are points that you are pretty much stuck with observing and pandering to if you have any intention of being published. My first assignment piece (writing for girls) was a funny story that pulled in elements of stuff by Jasper Fforde and other authors who love playing with book genres, twisting characters in and out of story worlds even if they don't belong there. It wasn't a particularly girly piece, and I must admit that I cheated a bit in class when reading it aloud to give it more dramatic impact than it deserved, resorting to reading it just as I'd read stuff to my daughter (silly cockney voices and all).

It was, in no way shape or form, a story purely for girls. In fact it would be turned down by an agent - not because it was a piss-poor piece of writing (which it pretty much was) but because it did not tick any of those boxes expected from gender specific books.

For the second assignment (a story for boys) I would probably argue that I stuck to the rules pretty much to the letter, coming up with a science fiction story that was full of tech, pretty flat and in most cases utterly cliched character (sorry lads), about an intergalactic war and kids being at the forefront of that war due to their dexterity and ability to play videogames.

It's probably one of the worst pieces of trash I've ever written (and I say that as someone who is naturally self-critical and self-deprecating about every aspect of my creativity) and yet, sure enough, measured against the criteria provided in class, it absolutely ticked each and every one of the boxes presented as measured methods of writing successfully for boys.

I read both pieces to my daughter, who dutifully made some polite noises about them but understood which was which - despite us bringing her up with an eye for not only reading well within her own comfort zones, but sometimes breaking out into things she wouldn't normally want to read.

The more I write, and the more I pick at the scab of 'gender standards' not just at middle grade but in all books, the more I dislike what I see and the more it goes against all the things I want to champion as a writer or an artist. Sadly it feels that whatever efforts I take at this pre-published stage, I could end up completely buggered by a careless piece of marketing, or a cover design that just doesn't suit the audience the book is aimed at (if indeed I did wind my neck in and write specifically for either gender, something I just can't imagine doing).

I would love to live in a world where girls could feel confident in going to a bookstore and seeing kidlit at their reading level that doesn't resort to nasty dirty little gender-defining marketing tricks in order to pitch stories at them but as I've said many times on the blog over the last few years in these readitorials, just when you think progress is being made you start to fully dig into the mire of gender imbalance in kid lit and realise we're a very very long way away from true progress being made. Rules, it seems, are only made to be broken if you are a 'name' and publishers know your stuff will be money in the bank.

That makes me very sad indeed.

Once again we turn to a familiar subject for this week's ReadItTorial, a subject that crops up again and again. This week the subject of screen time came up again in an article referenced by The Telegraph: telegraph.co.uk/family/parenti…

For a number of years now, studies have begun to suggest that there's a direct correlation between the amount of time kids spend staring at screens (in any form, whether excessive TV watching, phone use, tablet use or videogames) and their ability to develop and sustain a continued focus on a non-screen task (particularly non-screen-based reading of books, for example).

After a recent suggestion from a family member that my wife and I are probably too strict on C when it comes to screen time, we wondered just how widespread and accepted the use of screen time as a 'treat' or as a method of allowing kids to wind down at the end of a hectic homework schedule actually is.

C does not have her own phone (though she's probably one of the few kids in her class that doesn't have one), she does not have access to a tablet but is allowed to watch TV if there's time, and also allowed to play videogames (again if there's time, and she's really stuck for something to do - which she rarely is).

For us, homework is actually more of an issue than screentime - and despite the school's guidelines that children should spend no more than 45 minutes on their homework each evening, 45 minutes is nowhere near enough time when - for example - the homework involves any sort of creative process, or perhaps a lot of research / bookwork / internet research in order to complete the task.

The allure of screentime is undeniable though, and we know full well that if we allowed C more of it, it would definitely start to eat into the time she spends reading for pleasure, or playing (remember when kids used to do that? Seems like a couple of generations ago, right?) As an only child she demands and gets more of our time than perhaps kids with siblings do (particularly siblings nearer their age or that share interests).

The question is, how do you strike a balance? What's actually fair? A recent Time Magazine article seemed to suggest that kids below the age of 12 should be limited to around an hour a day of screen time, incorporating most of the forms of screen time we described above. To C, an hour a day would seem almost luxuriously indulgent - so are we being too strict?

Many parents are concerned about the effect curtailing their kids' screen time has on them. They might throw a tantrum. They may become angry - sometimes even violent or abusive. Quite often we've read about cases where kids have reacted in this way when parents have taken steps to abruptly cut down on the amount of screen time or kids' access to the internet / videogames - sometimes going as far as seeking external help from organisations or individuals who set themselves up almost like drying-out clinics. Screen / videogame addiction is now officially recognised by the The World Health Organization which now includes "gaming disorder" within the 11th revision of its International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (as of June 2018).

As we struggle to find easy ways to achieve a balance in a busy school week (though, thankfully, we've never had a problem convincing C about reading for pleasure, thankfully that has come from always being read to, reading herself, and having a ready supply of books either through the libraries or through the blog) there are at least plenty of ways to ensure that once we have to cross the rickety bridge of letting her loose on the internet, we can set some measures in place to try and offset unreasonable amounts of time spent instagramming, snapchatting or whatever else kids get into as soon as their hit their teens.

Most videogame consoles have pretty sophisticated parental controls that allow you to set up a timetable for screen time (The Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PS4 all have similar methods of allowing parents to create usage profiles to nip excessive screentime in the bud - google and you'll find a whole plethora of info on how to set this up easily)

All internet service providers allow similar controls on broadband routers - which can be set up per-device, ensuring that again the internet is only available to those devices at certain times. Once kids are old enough, it's up to parents to discuss and sensibly set these parameters.

Finally, when it comes to online purchases and other videogame-related behaviour, again most consoles will allow parental confirmation of purchases made under a child's profile, with the parent having the final say on whether the purchase is made or not.

So there are plenty of non-draconian things we can all do to help achieve the right balance.

There's always the 'lead by example' model too, and I must once again admit that this is an area where we could buck our ideas up as parents. All too often we find ourselves listlessly scrolling through our social media feeds when we could be doing other things. I myself usually end up in front of a screen once C has gone to bed but we always try to ensure that we balance those week night / school night patterns of behaviour with just getting the heck out of the house at weekends or during holidays / annual leave. I think we'd go completely screwy if we didn't.

Studies should incorporate and take into account that all children are different, however, and the current 'one size fits all' behavioural modelling and recommendations won't always fit one kid as well as they'll fit the next and that goes double for encouraging kids to become lifelong leisure-readers. As much as we constantly see calls for schools to do more to encourage reading for pleasure, the real beginning of that must absolutely start with us parents ourselves.

Creative writing is pretty tough, right? Creative writing for children? Heck, it's the literary equivalent of this little fellah...


(Yeah, that'll be me in the cowboy hat and the unconvincing moustache).

The thing is, it's not really the course's fault. Through the two assignments we've had so far (writing a 'funny' story - brutally tough, then writing an adventure story in 500 words - even tougher still) a few things have become clear. I know you love these ReadItTorial list-marathons so here's ten things I can self-critically see are wrong with my writing.

1) I cannot do the '500 words' thing. 

Honestly, when anyone even breathes the phrase "500 words" I'm like this...


500 words? I've barely GOT GOING in 500 words. Particularly with the adventure story I ended up having to cheat things a bit, hacking out huge chunks of my scene setting, character building and world building to leave the slimmest of skeletons behind. Though I hate 'em, I can see the clear need for word counts. All the great advice about 'writing more' then trimming your work down really doesn't seem to work for me.

2) I suck at coming up with character names. 


Thankfully I haven't fallen down the Ian M. Banks hole of naming all my characters without the use of vowels, but still it's durned hard to come up with names that fit a particular story. I've written several things where I've even resorted to calling characters "Character A" or "Character B" simply because I've had no inspiration for names whatsoever. I liked J.K. Rowling's approach of 'grave robbing' - ie nicking character names from Greyfriars Cemetery but I don't tend to hang around graveyards that much.

3) If one idea gets 'stuck' in my head, I can never seem to get rid of it to move onto something else.


This happened with the "Adventure Story" assignment. I knew the idea I'd had was sucky, I knew that I should've just dropped the idea like a hot potato and moved on - but I kept coming back to the same damned thing, absolutely convinced that I could fix it or pep it up in some way. It's like having gum on your shoe and convincing yourself that you'll just make it to that park bench over there before it irritates you so much that you want to take your shoes off and hurl them across the road. Sometimes it's great to try and salvage a story. Other times you wish you could just fire that sucker into the heart of the nearest sun.

4) I'm far too easily led - or influenced by - other things...!

Yep, just about every week I listen to other people's stories as part of the course - and I'm completely blown away by how talented these folk are. Everyone has their own reasons for attending the course, most seem to want to be published - quite a few are members of SCBWI and other organisations, but what strikes me is just how durned FRESH their stuff sounds to my ears.

In the scope of book blogging I'm well and truly used to seeing the same ideas over and over again, and I always try to inform my own writing by making sure it's as far distanced from other children's writing that I've been exposed to as possible. But dang, I'm totally in awe of my classmates who seem to be able to spin up stories with such ease. Genuine hat tip to them all.


6) I regularly break every single one of the rules I set myself when I started out trying to write for children.


I hate cliches. I hate defaults. I hate seeing the same themes cropping up again, and again, and again in children's books and writing - yet here I am a few weeks into the course, writing 'under pressure' (well, you try writing something new every single week for a few weeks, good luck with that) and I'm all over those defaults (the bumbling dad, the two dimensional futuristic dystopia), all over the same themes (Friends are great, generational gaps are insurmountable etc etc). Some of those may be brilliant subjects for children's writing but I can't help feeling a bit disappointed with myself that I'm falling into a great deal of 'lazy writing' this early on.


7) I'm absolutely convinced I can do this. Perhaps wrongly. 


Self-deprecation for fun and profit. Nah, honestly there's still this stupid belief that I can somehow produce something that will work, will catch an agent's eye, and perhaps will eventually make it into print. I have absolutely no basis for that belief other than the tiniest smidge of ability as a creative writer who has progressed from 'never being able to finish a story' to 'can finish a story but it'll need a ton of Mister Sheen to polish it before it can be submitted'.

8) I'm harshly self critical, but hate being critiqued!


Oh yars, that is so me. I'm quite fortunate that I live with the two most amazing women on the planet (my wife and daughter) and that they aren't exactly backwards in coming forwards with an opinion on anything. I know that if I get a tired shrug, a "s'ok, I spose", that this is the closest to critical gold as I'm ever going to get at home.

This is good though, having the two toughest critics to please means that when I take something out to my course every week, I should be ready prepared with a teflon skin for even the sharpest criticism, right?

Wrong. I just can't take it. I squirm inwardly when receiving even the most polite and constructive criticism of my work, it just breaks me - and yet it's the only way I'll learn to break the cycle of writing something junk that is junk and will end up in the junk pile, right?


9) I have absolutely no idea to write for particular age ranges. 


Again this is something I thought might be a lot easier than it actually is. Writing for a specific "Middle Grade" age group sounds like a doddle, right? But it's far too easy (for me at least) to assume that all middle graders or my prospective audience has the same level of understanding, same vocabulary skills and perhaps is as well-read as my own daughter.

Of course, that means that quite often my writing meanders between being "OK" for lower / middle grade but then will veer off at a tangent into YA / Adult territory.

It's so subjective, there are obvious things that you can avoid and need to avoid to hit the MG range (no swearing, no vices, and absolutely no woo-hooing!) but I have the same problem trying to fit age categories to books we review, so it's no real surprise that I can't actually write to a given age range either.


10) I'm too stupid to give up now.



I don't know what it is. It's idiocy, perhaps there's a tiny bit of egotistical vanity in there, perhaps there's still the raging fist-shaking belief that "IF THEY CAN GET THAT PEESACRAP PUBLISHED THEN SURELY I CAN WRITE SOMETHING THAT WILL GET PUBLISHED TOO" (hey, I'm not the only writer who's ever fessed up to that particular character trait) but I feel like I'm actually too dumb to give up. I haven't been writing in earnest for that long, some writers (depressingly) love sharing those anecdotes about how many rejections, how many years they spent shilling their book before an agent took it on and now they're highly respected authors who can command up to 5 free sandwiches and an inordinate amount of free hot beverages at book events (getting paid? That's another thing entirely).

I am going to maintain my idiocy for a while longer. I said this course would be make or break, and I'm exactly half way through it. Will it all somehow click? I may write another readitorial in 5 weeks time to let you know..!

Hoo boy, where to start with this one...

Inspired by a tweet from author Piers Torday:

https://twitter.com/PiersTorday/status/1044494412632461313

"So why is not 1 in 3 book reviews a review of a children's book? Open question - not saying they should be, necessarily, but asking why children's lit review coverage is still so disproportionately marginalised? (eg one book a week, a monthly round up, or most often, none at all)"
"Or on the average book blog,a review a day, sometimes more than one. Sometimes up to 6 on a Friday simply because there are so many ace books to talk about that we can barely fit them all into our schedule. Missing out weekends and doing this in our spare time because we LOVE it"

Ahhh there's nothing like laughing until you cry, right?

I've been thinking a lot about 'funny' children's books, mostly in light of the fact that it feels like so many comedic celebrities are lining up to become children's authors.

Some seem to naturally slide into that role, able to adapt to the mindset of kids and tap into what they actually genuinely laugh at.

We've seen it so many times in recent PR blurbs. "A hilarious book" or "So funny it nearly made me wet my pants" - and quite often we read these amazing rib-ticklers only to come out the other end with barely a smirk across our faces.

C is now witheringly critical of so-called 'funny' books, but isn't quite as humourless as her old man. In fact her highly developed sense of humour is what I'm tapping for inspiration for this ReadItTorial with a few writerly observations about what really makes her laugh - and by laugh, I don't just mean a polite titter or two but a full-on belly laugh or snorting snigger-a-thon. So here are six things we love to see done properly in funny books.

1) "Surprise!"

Sometimes, laughs come straight out of left field, completely unexpected. It's like the author has been playing us all along before sliding something into their text that has us erupting into gales of laughter.

When reading Maz Evans' divine "Who Let The Gods Out" it was her description of a particular teacher's remarkable 'aroma' that gave us our first real laugh of the book (there are so many other brilliantly funny - and quite heart-wrenchingly bittersweet moments in WLTGO so if you haven't already read it, get on it right away!).

Surprising kids with something that they really couldn't see coming is a brilliant comedic ploy.

2) "How Rude!"

Sadly, despite trying to encourage, nurture and develop a sophisticated sense of humour in C, she will inevitably still find toilet humour cacklingly funny. Though thankfully she's managed to progress past the usual poo, fart, wee, sicky type of stuff, I'm afraid to say that Jamie Smart's "Looshkin" comics seem to be able to tap a part of her humour centre so well, that recently she almost began to hyperventilate reading one particular strip (I can't even remember what the gag was, but even to a hardened cynical dad I actually have to agree with her that Looshkin is VERY funny). If you really must lower the bar to toilet-level humour, you'd better do a durned good job of it because again, it's not merely enough to mention bottoms, wees or poos any more. Kids have moved on and require smarter laughs.

3) "Yup that happened to me too!"

This is a tough nut to crack for a would-be comedic writer. If you can somehow put yourself into the mindset of a kid the age of your intended audience, and somehow find that one thing they will readily identify with, you're onto absolute gold dust. Again, it seems a lot of adult comedy writers might have never grown up themselves, as they seem to be able to tweak this particular centre of humour so very well.

Observational humour is also great in children's books in cases where adults will knowingly nod in recognition of a particular grown up character's plight. Both my wife and I will quite often politely smile at certain books - such as the recent "What's for Lunch, Papa Penguin?" - where the author perfectly summarises and captures a particular behavioural trait common to most kids (in this case, an adult going to hell and back to find a tasty treat for their kid, only to find said kid tucking into a piece of bread and cheese at home).

4) "Just Desserts"

This again is a fairly subtle and difficult to perfect element of comedic writing and the laughs here aren't so much rib tickling, as a laugh of the joy of seeing someone get royally served a hefty dose of humble pie in a book. Sure it's not the deep down belly laugh you're probably seeking from your young readers, but anything that can make a kid shout "YESSS!!! IN YOUR FACE!" about a nefarious character's plight is a win-win.

5) "Pun flew over the cuckoo's nest"

Oh my god, puns. I remember reading something that described the use of puns in children's books as 'a good way to sail your humour right over a kid's head' but kids absolutely LOVE puns and can't resist any clever use of the language to twist and warp the text of a story. I guarantee you that if kids will endlessly repeat a particular quote from a book, it'll be something pun-tastic.

6) "Adults are stupid, specially mum and dad"

I quietly take umbrage at this one, as it does seem to be poor "Dad" who ends up in the firing line more than mum when it comes to seeing core characters in children's stories doing the most ridiculous things, or being shown up as a bit of a comedic prat-falling dullard.

Some books manage to get this right though, and it's worth polishing this particular story element up - because nothing amuses kids more than to see mum or dad ending up at the literal wrong end of a pie in the face. If you've ever managed to survive not being made to look like a complete gibbon after a reading of "The Book With No Pictures" by B.J Novak, then you're failing at life!


Hopefully the tips above and this list of favourite comedic story elements of ours might give you pause for thought when penning your own rib-tickling comedy story. Mostly though we spend our entire book blogging year waiting for such a tiny handful of real, genuine moments where we're left completely breathless by how funny a book is - but heck, they're usually worth waiting for.

(Credit: Sarah McIntyre. See how easy it is to add illustrator credit?)

The fantastic #PicturesMeanBusiness campaign moves into its second phase, taking on extra staff to ensure that the publishing industry (and other branches of the media) begin to understand just how important it is to ensure that illustrators, artists, designers and creative folk are properly credited for their work.

From the blogger perspective, time and again we find ourselves forced to do a lot of extra work trying to find information on particular artist credits.

When you write a blog in your spare time, you're effectively wasting a huge amount of that spare time hunting around for information that publishers and PR folk could quite easily provide for you in press information and releases. Yet time and again, and not just in PR stuff but in other aspects of producing information about books (such as ads and catalogues) ILLUSTRATORS AND ARTISTS ARE NOT PROPERLY CREDITED, OR IN SOME CASES NOT EVEN MENTIONED AT ALL!

So we're left digging through books often to find the easily missed single line where the cover or interior artist is briefly mentioned in tiny print somewhere inside the book or frantically googling around to see if the author or the publisher has mentioned the artist elsewhere (answer: usually no!)

Sarah McIntyre AKA @jabberworks has been tirelessly campaigning with her #PicturesMeanBusiness initiative for many years, and with phase two about to begin, I thought it'd be a good idea to wrap together ten common misconceptions about being an illustrator / artist both from my own (failed) attempt to become one back as a surly twenty-something, and from direct observation of the way creatives are treated during our 8 years of book blogging.

1) "You get paid to draw pictures all day? What a dossy job!"

Oh my god, if there's a statement designed to result in someone being stabbed in the eye with a Bic biro (no self-respecting artist would ever use any of their 'good' pens or brushes for such a task) it's this one.

Again through my own direct experience of folk completely failing to understand what illustration is, what artistic talent involves, and how UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY HARD IT IS to become a professional artist or illustrator, statements like this show that the ignorance goes deep. Most people seem to equate artists and illustrators with the "kid in class who was always doodling or drawing" and quite a few folk also seem to believe that doing this day in day out for a living is something of a dream job.

Far from it - most artists really do struggle to crack the market in any meaningful way, and rely heavily on a lot of foot slogging and promotion of their work - which again is where the whole #PicturesMeanBusiness campaign stems from - if publishers and people employing artists made a better fist of helping their creatives out, perhaps the public perception of the job of being a professional illustrator may change too.

It's not just that - it is supremely difficult to be disciplined enough to work day in day out creating something from nothing. Imagine what it's like as an office drone when you wake up on a monday morning and can't be bothered to turn in for work. Now imagine if you're tired, or ill, or have sore eyes, or worse yet - have a complete creative block, but rely on getting up and working on something creative despite all that - and often for very little reward. Easy is it?

2) "Wow, I bet you get paid a fortune!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Again, from the direct experience of quitting an IT job with decent pay, going away to art college for two years, emerging with a bunch of qualifications and a portfolio - and then taking on any illustration jobs I could find (when I could even get someone to pay me at all, often at a rate that was worse than performing manual labour or even shop work, the majority of artists do not earn anywhere near a fortune.

While at college I worked various jobs to fit in around classes and studio time just so I could live (and by 'live' I mean 'scrape by on less than minimum wage per week'). For a lot of professional creatives that's also their reality. Very few can earn a solid living purely from illustration, and either have to take on other jobs (often more than one), or extend their illustrative or creative work out into other forms (such as workshopping or experience stuff at schools etc). Authors will gladly tell you how little they earn from each book sale. Consider that in a lot of cases illustrators will also earn a pifflingly small amount and have to subsidise their incomes in other ways too.

3) "Can you draw this for me? We don't pay but can offer you great exposure!"

Again, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

I think we've gone over this one many, many times on the blog and on Twitter. We've seen a lot of illustrators and artists we follow on Twitter each with their own stories of folk who've approached them for work, with no intention of paying a cent - but offering some level of coverage that isn't really worth a bean to an artist who has bills to pay. If you're trying to employ an artist for any work, and your up-front discussion doesn't come with a fee offer, pack up, go home, go find another job because you're obviously terrible at the one you're doing. Or, at the very least, don't be surprised or get aggressive when that person calls you out on it, and makes you look like the penny pinching meanie you are.

(See also: "Competition to design our new logo! Win the chance to see your work on every billboard and sign away all your creative rights at point of entry")

4) "It's all about word of mouth".

Not exactly, though word of mouth can be very useful for an artist - and recommending their work to others can help an artist find even more work. But it goes deeper than that. If you cannot also show that you value the work that the person has done for you by properly listing and crediting them throughout a project (regardless of the type of creative project we're talking about here - not just book illustration but even something as simple as designing a logo for you) then you're only doing half a job.

Many professionals in all other aspects of children's book publishing do get to know talented artists through word of mouth and reputation, but if someone has to hunt around for information on a specific cover or interior artist for a book, they won't hunt for long in my experience - and may just take on someone else, thus losing the first person a job. That's so flipping wrong and just should not be happening in this information-led age.

5) "Artists are so difficult / demanding to work with though".

I remember hearing this a few times while hawking for gigs after graduating from college. Artists are often imbued with the unfair reputation of being fairly narrowly focused, not adaptable and quite difficult to deal with professionally. If you feel like that, you're obviously taking the wrong approach (probably the approach already detailed in the previous four points above).

Artists want to work, and they may want to work with you. But any creative process is a two-way street so if you instantly set up a confrontational and 'bossy' approach to dealing with a creative, don't be surprised if they dig their creative heels in and push back.

Again it stems from the way a lot of artists are treated by folk higher up the food chain in a particular company. I remember being in a planning meeting in one gig where I'd managed to secure illustration work in-house for a company, and being told to shut up because "I wasn't being paid for my opinion, I was being paid for my work" - purely because I assumed I was there as a professional whose opinions would be feeding into the creative process - not a pencil-pushing drone.

Back to the original line and most artists will tell you that the most difficult folk to work for are creative directors who have no concept of give & take.

6) "Rights? What rights? You're getting paid, aren't you?"

This is a tricky one, particularly if you're working in-house as you may end up having to sign a contract effectively waiving your rights over your own work.

Many artists have wildly differing experiences of this. Some retain absolutely no rights at all to their work and are not even allowed to use it in their own portfolios (again, I have direct experience of this but the industry may have (hopefully) changed in the last 20 years or so). Some are given more slack and allowed to use their work for their own promotional means. It's vitally important for an artist to be able to show and name clients, work and aspects of a project in order to get more work so please for goodness sake don't choke off that chance.

7) "So what if it's 2AM. I thought you liked drawing?"

Maybe a smidge of exaggeration, I don't think many artists have been woken up in the middle of the night to finish off a piece of work - but many artists and creative will indeed have worked an all-nighter to finish off a project, or put their own physical (and mental) health at risk when under pressure from tight timelines on a project.

This again is unreasonable treatment, and assumes that creatives don't have their own lives. Imagine the life of a freelancer illustrator who has to account for every minute of their working day, but also needs the benefits other employees get in all other forms of employment. Yes they need downtime, they need holidays, they need a pension, and dammit they need to be able to live and exist. So when your company announces its next quarter profits in the millions, yet the employees and creatives, freelance or otherwise are barely scraping by, how do you sleep through 2AM?

8) "We cut your bit so we don't need to credit / pay you"

Again, back when I was trying to make a living as an illustrator I took on a job providing a set of graphics for a web company. I spent about three weeks designing headers, logos, link indicators and all manner of other screen furniture for a look and feel for the site.

Though I was (miraculously and luckily) paid for the gig, the company eventually ditched my stuff in favour of an in-house creative who put together an alternative look and feel for their site.

Because I wasn't allowed to use the material in my own portfolio (see "rights aren't important" above) and because I had no credit anywhere in the site, I had no proof that I'd ever done the work - which again meant that I had nothing to take to my next job to secure work along similar lines.

This must be how it feels for artists who don't get their work credited on children's books. Imagine trying to convince someone that your illustrations and designs were used on a book if you were soaked up as part of a creative team who weren't credited individually - and were also denied the rights to your work for portfolio purposes?

9) "We really can't possibly list absolutely everyone who worked on this book!"

Bizarrely, some forms of publishing do go the extra mile - where nearly all aspects of the design of a publication are credited in some way either in the publication itself or in the listing for that item in catalogues or e-shops or websites.

Comics. Colourists, letterers, even layout artists often get credited by DC and Marvel and rightly so.

Would it not be feasible and appropriate for all children's books to also similarly credit everyone involved in a publication? I'd love to see that happen, particularly for a lot of non fiction titles.

If you think that it's appropriate to miss your cover artist out, imagine what your book would look like with a plain cover, and how many copies it would shift. Cover art (and not just in kidlit, in all forms of publishing) can often be the difference between an impulse sale at first sight, or someone passing your author's book by, so never underestimate the worth of an artist's work on covers.

10) "We don't need talented artists, we'll just hire anyone. It's just a kid's book after all!"

Again, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

I don't know if any of you remember that episode of "The Apprentice" where the vacuous folk involved in the programme were tasked with producing a children's book. But the assumption above is just so wrong on so many levels.

First, any author will tell you just how difficult it is to write for children. Any illustrator will also tell you how utterly brutal and withering kids are when it comes to critiquing your illustrative work. If you're an artist and you've got kids of your own (or nieces, nephews, younger sibs, cousins etc) you'll know just how precise they are in their requirements for what constitutes as 'good drawings'.

When we started blogging 8 years ago, I remember how difficult it was to woo my daughter away from visually impactive books that had dreadful stories - and conversely how difficult it was to get her to love a book that was beautifully written and had a gorgeous story, but had illustrations that sucked donkey biscuits.

The whole package has to be utterly faultless and professional for kids, from start to finish, from cover to end papers, through internal illustrations and back again (purely talking about the illustrations here but the same rules apply to the stories / text too).

The publishers that do well are the ones that fully understand this, and take no half measures with either. Don't ever assume that just because an illustrator is drawing or painting for kids, that they'll somehow be fine with cutting corners either because experience kidlit illos will absolutely KNOW that kids are super-picky and won't accept just any old tosh.

Bonus Point: "We didn't want to put the artist's name on the cover, because it would detract from this being the Author's book"

(Had to sneak this one in as a final extra point). Yes, I have actually heard this used as an excuse why a particular set of books featured no cover art / interior art credit. You see, the intended audience were supposed to magically believe that the author in question had magically acquired some seriously amazing art skills, in fact art skills that looked EXACTLY LIKE ONE OF OUR FAVOURITE ARTIST'S! Obviously after a bit of digging and surreptitious tweets to the suspected artist, we did eventually find out that it was her work - but she'd accepted the contract knowing her work wouldn't be flagged. So wrong on multiple levels as the artist in question's work was utterly fantastic and absolutely essential to how well received the books were.

Stuff like this is wrong, yet it seems to happen almost on a daily basis.

These are just a few points I wanted to draw our readers attention to under the umbrella of support for #PicturesMeanBusiness.

 I probably could've written another ten easily. Suffice to say that my own artistic experience is fairly limited when it comes to working on commercial stuff, yet the stories and anecdotes I hear again and again from artists and illustrators involved in kidlit have an air of sad familiarity about them, and are very similar to my own experiences. This seems to demonstrate that very little has changed in the last 20 years and that makes me sad because it means the very reasons I couldn't cut it and definitely couldn't make any kind of a comfortable living at illustration are still true to this day.

Perhaps it's a good thing that we have superheroes like Sarah McIntyre and #PicturesMeanBusiness fighting for the creative corner, to ensure that folk get a far better deal and are far more fairly treated by the children's publishing industry. Maybe one day there will actually be a way that creative folk can earn a crust from something they're passionate about after all.

This has absolutely all the right elements to make for a truly fantastic christmas story - but it's also a really fabulous story in its own right.

James Mayhew's glorious "Katie" series is never better than when Katie and her cousin Jack take a trip to London to help out Santa.

The poor old fellah has a thoroughly rotten cold, so he's going to need some help to deliver all the presents to children - so it's up to Katie and Jack to help save christmas for everyone.

In picture book form it's a slice of magic, and as an animated movie it practically BEGS to be recreated in that same fabulous flowing form that James' illustrations all have.

It'd be a christmas dream!


2) "This Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown" by Cressida Cowell and Neal Layton. 

The Christmas animation doesn't necessarily need to be "Christmassy" though (and in fact if you really did want to adapt an Emily Brown book you could go for the easy win of adapting Cressida and Neal's brand spanking new "Emily Brown and Father Christmas"). But we'll be honest here, this is by far the best book in the series - and the one we'd most dearly love to see turned into an animated classic.

The story of Emily Brown and her beloved Rabbit Stanley is just utterly timeless, and a book we've read (and indeed reviewed) again and again on the blog as the plucky kid adventurer resists the pleas from a rather naughty little queen to give up her favourite toy for all manner of (not very tempting) alternatives. Until of course the wicked queen resorts to nefarious means, and steals Stanley away!

If you've never encountered these books but are familiar with Cressida's "How to Train your Dragon" series, you'll know you're in for top-flight writing, and brilliant wibbly illustrations from Neal just add to the huge appeal of these books.

3) "The Storm Whale" by Benji Davies. 

Again, not christmassy - but this is just one of the many Benji Davies books that would make truly brilliant animated shorts. Benji's own book trailers for his books show just how fabulous this could look

The story of little Noi and his encounter with a poor baby whale who ends up beached on Noi's island is just utterly sublime and atmospheric.

We could also imagine "The Storm Whale in Winter" being a shoe-in for fitting the right wintry festive atmosphere for a christmas TV classic too. With such a strong visual look and a delightfully simple but utterly engrossing story, this would be an utterly brilliant choice.

4) "The Pirates Next Door" by Jonny Duddle. 

Here's another non-festive book that we still can't quite believe hasn't already had the animated treatment. Given Jonny's previous experience of providing awesome designs and input for the "Pirates" movie by Aardman Animations, we've already got a clear picture in our heads of how this adventure with the Jolley Rogers could look.

A timely and important tale for kids about tolerance as well as how utterly brilliant a life on the ocean wave as a scurvy pirate would be, it would be a brilliant slice of Christmas fun.

You could even get the man himself to narrate his own story - he did such a great job on the audio versions of these.

5) "The Bear and the Piano" by David Litchfield. 

This sublime and atmospheric story might've been surpassed a smidge by its sequel ("The Bear, The Piano, The Dog and the Fiddle) but the original "The Bear and the Piano" would make for such a heartwarming and gloriously atmospheric animation, again we're surprised it hasn't already been snapped up.

The story of a bear who discovers his love for music quite by accident, then becomes a huge globetrotting star - but never forgets his humble roots - ticks all the right boxes for being visually stunning, with a nice little moral but also a really fab little story.

We've loved David Litchfield's books and think it would actually be quite a challenge to adapt his stunning illustrations to capture that glowy rim-lit and atmospheric look and feel, but we'd love to see someone try. It could be truly magical.


6) "The Little Red Wolf" by Amelie Flechais.

We really wanted absolutely everyone on the planet to discover the glorious books of Amelie Flechais. Not very many get translated into English but in the case of "The Little Red Wolf", Amelie's utterly sumptuous artwork gave a children's classic fairy tale such a whopping great big shot in the arm that we come back to it again and again.

Imagining those amazing illustrations adapted either into a traditional 2D animation - or perhaps in the right hands a truly amazing 3D animated classic just makes us daydream happy daydreams.

It's a timeless tale of a little wolf finding an adventure in a world where the wolf and 'little girl' roles are subtly and neatly switched.

We love this book a lot and if you've yet to encounter it, we strongly suggest grabbing a copy.

7) Heapy and Heap's awesome "Very Little" series. 

You've got quite a few stories to choose from here, with a series that has always been consistently fun to read, beautifully well observed and again proving that adaptations of classic tales can be original and hilarious at the same time.

"Very Little Cinderella / Sleeping Beauty / Rapunzel" could all be adapted so easily into brilliant animations, retaining Sue Heap's fab watercolours into a flowing moving version.

We're waiting in anticipation for the next book but in the meantime we would dearly love to see at least one of these turned into a mini movie to enjoy with the family.

We're trying to think who'd make the best voice talent for this but C said she's more than up for the gig if it comes up!

8) Pretty much ANY Anthony Browne book.

Much as we love Julia and Axel's work, and the huge impact they've had on children's picture books, there's another Author / Artist whose work consistently blows us away.

Anthony Browne's books are always such a stunning treat, tinged with just the right sort of dark atmosphere we love to see in children's stories. A certain edginess but always with a subtle moral tucked neatly into a story that feels like it could leap out of the pages at any second, and completely engulf you.

Stuff like "The Tunnel" would probably be too dark for a cosy Christmas classic, but any of the "Willy" books would be ace, as would "Hide and Seek" - and if the animators could somehow reproduce that neat trick of hiding things in the backgrounds for kids to spot, these could be amazing adapted for screen.

9) "When it Snows" by Richard Collingridge. 

I've lost count of the number of people we've recommended this book to when they ask us for a festive wintry christmas book that ticks all the right boxes for being a brilliant story, full of glorious illustrations and a ton of atmosphere.

Again I remember the early book trailers for this book being beautifully animated and adapted - so it's very easy to imagine this glorious dash through the snow as a mini animated movie.

The tale of a boy's magical adventure through a snowbound landscape just oozes style and warmth despite its icy setting.

It's always at the top of our reading pile when we hunt out our Christmas Books for a re-read as December arrives so it'd be a brilliant choice.

10) "Black Dog" by Levi Pinfold. 

One look at the snowbound cover for this, and the thought of imagining a hugely talented studio (and they'd have to be hugely talented to capture the essence of Pinfold's work) working this brilliant modern classic into an animated short just sends shivers down our backs.

"Black Dog" isn't just in our top ten children's picture books of all time (somewhere near the top too, we might add, if we were ever foolish enough to try and compile such a list), it's another book we've recommended again and again to folk who want something more than twee and comfy little stories, but want something that's a fantastic story, is utterly visually perfect, and can be returned to again and again for kids of practically any age.

The story of a huge menacing black dog, and the tiny child who bravely stands up to the big shaggy bully to protect his family has so many neat twists, so many visual treats and would be a truly glorious choice.

So that rounds off our ten children's picture books that would be amazing choices to adapt to the small screen. Make it so, TV execs, you know it makes sense!