Well, there's nothing like being served a fresh taste of "WAKE UP!" when it comes to a particular insight into children's books and the latest subject for a ReadItTorial is a fairly divisive notion that children's books (particularly picture books) and stories should only ever feature children or animals.

Wait, stop the durned press a second, WHAT?

Yes indeed - apparently there is a very strong opinion amongst authors and would-be authors that one of the main reasons I've gone horribly wrong with manuscript submissions in the past may be down to one simple error on my part.

Including an adult as a main character in a children's story (with no child characters or animals, not even in supporting roles) is, apparently, a real 'no no' in some circles. You see, as plain as the nose on your face, the fact of the matter (as the stylishly shirted gentleman above demonstrates)...adults are BORING!

I always have an eye on the written and unwritten 'rules' for children's books and this particular one felt like a real whump in the gut. In discussion with several awesome tweeters (including amongst others the truly awesome O'Hara sisters, Jodie Hodges, Sara O'Leary, Duncan Beedie, Sandra Russell and fab PR Patronus Sarah Elizabeth) there seemed to be a real split right down the middle about this one.

So we dug deep into the archives, desperate to see if we'd been falling into the same trap with our Book of the Week picks, compiling some stats from 2017's 721 books that were reviewed on the blog but specifically concentrating our efforts on Picture Book of the Week winners. Did any of them feature adults (human adults, not adults portrayed as anthropomorphised animals)? Any at all?

Eeks. It didn't look good.

A mere 9 out of 76 children's picture books that made the Book of the Week slot featured human adults in a solo role (or featured in books with inconsequential or NPC child characters). Picture Book Stories such as "The Gritterman" by Orlando Weeks were, it seems, extremely rare.

The interesting thing was that of the 9, 7 featured adult male characters rather than adult female characters. Something I was not expecting to see at all.

The other extremely interesting thing was that over half of these types of book were comics or graphic novels, again seeming to show that "boring old adults" are fine as long as they have super-powers or a good solid comic-strip punch-up now and again.

Things seem to change radically when books start to move towards upper-middle-grade and into YA (though weirdly, age differences do a weird seesaw thing between MG and YA with more adults featuring in MG, ages dropping more or less exclusively to teen or younger end of 20s in the YA spectrum).

One other odd thing is that it seems children are perfectly fine reading non-fiction featuring adults (though by no stretch of the imagination can you call historical figures, famous STEM figures, pioneering explorers etc 'boring') so there seems to be a key there.

Children, it seems, are fine with main adult characters as long as they're doing something pretty mind-blowingly great. So all is not lost.

Thinking back to stories we've read where (for instance) a human adult character has interactions with non-human characters (either in sci fi or fantasy scenarios, or again interactions with anthropomorphised animal characters or indeed kids either as a parent or guardian or relative) it's easy to see something raised perfectly by the O'Hara Sisters in their tweets on this subject:

I don’t think it needs to be children exactly, but even when it’s adults, they often present as children (Winnie the Pooh, Asterix is a big kid, Paddington presents as a child etcetc) I think the issue is mostly when it’s adults...

‘Solve the issues’. You know those children’s books that are like ‘mummy came in and solved everything’. Very boring for children I think?

— O'Hara Sisters (@oharasisters) January 26, 2018

This is a story mechanic we see an awful lot in kid / parent books, it's also one we see in any books where there's a moral lesson to impart (and sometimes those stories can be such a massive, preachy annoyance for kids anyway).

The main reason I'm taking such a deep dive on this is because I've had quite a few manuscripts rejected and it becomes searingly obvious that sometimes the characters and the settings are the problem - and if I am stupid enough to include characters in a story that have issues I have (thinking of one solid example that was inspired by a real issue we always struggle with at home) without chopping up and changing the main character enough for it to 'not be me', these are never going to find the right audience or get anywhere near a whiff of a deal.

So it also becomes blatantly obvious why there are so many animal / monster books, as the easy 'swap in' is to remove the human element entirely.

Lots of food for thought. I would really, dearly love to hear anyone talk up a favourite 'adult human as main character' book as a great example so if you have one, it'd be ace to have a few comments below or on Twitter @readitdaddy

Wow though eh? Kid's books, who'd have thunk they were a rich ever-complicated constantly shifting and amazingly inspirational thing eh?

You wake up one morning and after reading yet another dozen or so books that feel like they've been stamped out by some unstoppable machine, you start to look longingly at the manuscripts you're working on.

Some days you even feel like you're brave enough to submit them to an agent, or blind-submit them to a publisher who accepts unsolicited work.

Those days are very weird. Paranoia sets in almost immediately you hit the 'send' button, having read their terms and conditions to yourself a dozen times over, feeling sure that you haven't done anything to offend the sensitive process or upset the slush pile.

Paranoia gives way to a major pang of regret pretty soon after...

"Oh damn, I should've changed that bit" or "Ack, I think I might've gone over the word limit" or even "This story really is rubbish, how on earth did I think that would ever fly?"

I'd bet that's natural even for the most well established authors and illustrators, or perhaps I'm wrong - they just blithely jet off a manuscript while humming the theme tune to the Archers, gaily skipping around the house awaiting the ping of their email and a virtually instant response.

The next stage is the waiting. Any agent or publisher worth their salt will make you wait, and wait, and wait for a response - and will also ensure there's a caveat on their submissions page somewhere that says "Don't call us, we'll call you - if we call you at all!" which means that you've really got no idea whether you've been successful or not. The only thing to do is get on with your life, or maybe start work on the next few manuscripts ready to send off somewhere else.

Children's books are tough to write - and anyone who tells you otherwise is deluding themselves. I've written many times before on how tough an audience a roomful of kids can be, even when you're reading someone else's work. Imagine doing the same with something of your own and it being the equivalent of telling a terrible joke as a stand-up comedian and meeting a wall of silence rather than gales of laughter.

Some writers (and usually the ones who really need a decent editor / critique / severe reality check) have a built-in belief that "Because book A was published, and sucks, my book should be in with a fighting chance) and again it's a very dangerous assumption to make that your work is better than anyone elses. The best you can hope for is 'different' but if you're the sort of writer who shakes a fist at the sky, shouting "Why THEM! Why THEIR BOOK! It SHOULD'VE BEEN MINE" you're entering the wrong business, muchacho.

Of course, you could opt for the self-published route. The internet is awash with stories of "Joe Bloggs who quit his job as a sewage treatment worker and now writes and self publishes his own stories for children". Digging behind the scenes of those stories, you swiftly uncover the reality of self publishing in today's world and also swiftly conclude that the only way anyone could comfortably make a living straight out of the gate as a self published author would be to live on a tin of butterbeans a day, in a small hovel made of discarded Waitrose carrier bags, by the side of the A113 Heckmondswycke to Birthen.

I have lots of reasons for wanting to be published. None of them are financial. I want the chance to tell stories to a wider audience than my appreciative daughter or her (well meaningly uber-critical) mum. I want to somehow end up in that glorious gig of going to book festivals, not as a furtive consumer but as someone standing up in front of a room full of kids and their parents, talking about that day I sent off some manuscripts and the whole thing blew up from there. Most of all though I just want to do something that feels completely unattainable, yet amazingly special if by chance you're lucky enough to ever get your name at the top of a book that will one day sit on bookshelves or in bookstores (or more likely in my case, languish in those '2 for a pound' bins at your local discount store).

Lacking a critique clique or anyone to bounce ideas off, I'm taking a risk in assuming that someone else out there might find the stories touching or amusing, or perhaps feeling that my tales have struck just the right balance between peril and redemption.

If I ever got a reply back (even a negative one) I could at least tick off a couple more tries, stick those manuscripts away in a dusty drawer and perhaps return to them in another few years time and try again. But like many things in life, if you don't at least try and keep on trying, you're never going to know for sure.

This is going to be one of those parenting rambles, so if you've come in for today's ReadItTorial for anything book-related, you might want to skip to the end.

Still here? OK, you're special so today's topic takes in something I hadn't really expected to happen as a parent. Well, as a Dad really.

The main reason I never had kids until late on in life was because I hadn't met the right person (but thankfully now I have, I can't imagine life without her).

Soppy, I know - but the second reason I never had kids was because - quite frankly - the thought used to scare the living pee out of me.

Being someone's dad puts a huge weight of responsibility on your shoulders (shared, of course - if there's one thing I'm eternally thankful for it's the fact that both my wife and I put in an equal amount of effort to bringing up Charlotte) and it's blatantly obvious that some folk (like, for example, my Dad) just can't cope with that burden.

I never thought I was strong enough to, but it's amazing what you pull out of the bag when you've got a really utterly poor example to use as your lowest measure. I'll stop harping on about my dad, he's the bit player in this readitorial so I'll just stop griping.

I have always been determined to be the best dad I possibly can and form as close a bond to Charlotte as possible. Obviously most parents will feel exactly the same way, their kid(s) are their world, and the apples of their eye, and all the other dewy sentimental things you often hear new parents gooing and gushing about.

What I wasn't prepared for though was the amount of love - and lately protectiveness - I get back from Charlotte. I know that sounds weird but when you've had a bit of a strange upbringing, you enter most things with the lowest of expectations automatically, as a self-protection exercise.

I'm difficult to get on with, I know that and I know that my wife does an amazing job of putting up with my grumps and groans and over-sensitivity.

When you spend a lot of time railing at the world and wishing people were a bit less selfish, you find an awful lot to moan about if you're like me (hyper-aware to the world's failings, if I'm honest. I never developed a tough outer shell like most people seem to have).

Charlotte told me something that made me think a lot. She'd shown off some photos of us running our book stall at the recent Christmas charity fayre at a local Baptist church. Now there's a couple of things to note here. 1) I'm not religious in any way, never really have been and 2) I'd NEVER have considered doing anything like that before we had Charlotte - so it's yet another example of something that's been a positive outcome of being a dad and pushing against that horrid example we briefly brushed over earlier.

Back on point, the photo Charlotte showed off was part of her classroom activity around talking about what she does in her spare time. She did a great little presentation, but one of the boys (it's always a boy isn't it) in her class had loudly scoffed at the picture.

"Who's that stupid looking man with you?" he said.

Charlotte - with all the wrath that it's possible for an 8 year old to summon (a considerable amount actually, I think she gets it from her mum!) verbally destroyed the kid who'd chirped up.

"That's my Dad!" she cried. "Don't ever say anything horrible about my dad!" Thankfully she's passive otherwise I could imagine us being hauled before her form teacher for socking the kid on the nose.

By the sound of it, the boy quite meekly wound his neck in. But this isn't the first (and I'm hoping it won't be the last) time it's happened.

She can be a harsh critic, which I also need at times (most of the time she looks at things I'm doing or doodling and rolls her eyes in an eerie impersonation of her mum). But the staunch defender of dad wasn't something I was prepared for at all. I mean most kids love their parents, right? But it's all new to me, that feeling that someone demonstratively will stick up for you and fight your corner even though they're pint-sized. Who the hell wouldn't want to go to the ends of the earth for their kid if they were willing to behave like that?

It's also quite funny if mummy decides to tickle my feet and make me hiccup (her favourite trick). Here, Charlotte's usually passive side and protective nature meet in the middle and she'll actually fight mummy off (physically sometimes if need be) to protect me. Heart meltingly beautiful to see happen.

I've heard it many times that "it won't last" and I've also heard "you wait till she's a teenager" quite a few times too, but for the time being I'm happy having a pint-sized protector around - someone who's willing to love me unconditionally despite all my faults and failings.

Oh the book thing? You'd sell a million if you could stop writing books about kids and friendships (in that irritating 'stating the obvious' way that so many children's picture books do at the moment) and could somehow distil what parents get back from their kids, and pass that on to folk who still think that the answer to nirvana lies in the screen of their smartphone or tablet, or a worthless footie match.

Competition, they say, is healthy. Competition promotes and provokes innovation and change, and can drive markets and individuals to improve what they do - sometimes by subtle force, sometimes not so subtle. Sometimes it can feel like drowning.

This week's ReadItTorial dips into the subject of community review sites which are a bit of a hot topic as more and more consumers come to rely on them to help them make informed purchasing decisions.

"Reviews by Proxy" sites aren't really anything new, in fact they're just about everywhere you look. If you consider a product, consider that somewhere out there on the world wide web someone will have come up with the genius idea of sticking together a reviews site for that product. Everything you spend money on, from getting your tyres changed on your car, to having some poor unfortunate individual unblock your loo invites you - the customer - to share your experience of that service online in some fashion.

Naturally there are lots and lots of book review sites (hey, you're visiting one now!) but the subject of our readitorial today are sites collectively known as 'review by proxy' sites.

Consumer reviews aren't really anything new. Amazon, to a great extent, has become the force to be reckoned with in global book sales not just on price but on the fact that each and every customer has the chance to offer up an opinion on a book (or a set of Pat Butcher fan-art plates) they've bought. It's as simple as logging into your Amazon account and clicking 'write a review' to submit a star-rated opinion of your new purchase.

Authors, artists and publishers have a wide range of opinions on the worth and validity of these reviews. Most authors and artists will find an Amazon review - a positive one at least - to be worth its weight in marketing gold whereas others might just wish certain reviews would evaporate and disappear. There's also a huge question about genuine reviews vs obvious 'seeded' reviews too but that's a whole other debate that we're not really aiming for here.

We've always chosen not to review stuff on Amazon for a couple of good reasons. 1) We run a book reviews blog site. Pretty much a no brainer that we'd rather you came here to read our reviews rather than go to Amazon and generate traffic for them and 2) we get the majority of our books for free so it seems a bit morally wonky to stick up a review of a 'purchase' when you didn't even buy the thing in the first place.

In any arena where the general public are allowed to have their say, you have to be prepared to take the rough with the smooth. Some Amazon reviews are brilliantly written succinct and authoritative pieces that would make any author or artist proud as a 'back of the book' quote. Some are like hurling a cage full of mynah birds down a long flight of stairs while letting your favourite speech recognition software try to distil the resultant squawks.

So it is with the newer 'review by proxy' sites. These are consumer review sites but are subtly different in their genetic makeup. Essentially they start off with a mass mailout to various folk to invite contributions - before establishing themselves as a fully automated method of sharing opinions that's entirely community driven.

I've been struggling to come up with a catchy buzzword for these sites because it feels like they need one. (Proxviews? Revoxies? Come on, someone must be able to do better than me).

Collectively they're like a blog-o-matic machine, somewhere where you can submit an opinion without A) having to go through all the effort of starting a blog, B) having to establish an identity and a 'voice' for that blog, C) having to build a following and a reputation for that blog and finally D) going on bended knees to publishers to grab some books to review for that blog.

Sites such as GoodReads and Kirkus Reviews have been around for quite a while now. Both sites offer a huge number of reviews each day, covering the hugely diverse spectrum of adult and children's books from the very very beginnings of their reading adventures right through to the YA and grown up stuff they'll bury their noses in later on. Sometimes sites do this in conjunction with book charities and other reading organisations to promote diversity and variety, or to hone in on a narrower range of subjects so that they become the 'go-to' for recommendations of a fairly specific type.

Newer sites such as Toppsta have smartly recognised that the whole "Mummy Blogger" phenomenon is a reach seam of content generation to tap into. The site takes a slightly different approach, more like a social media site where each reviewer builds up a 'rep' and a social profile, group or network based around their reading and reviewing habits (which is a fantastic idea that you're probably surprised no one thought of AEONS ago - A facebook for books? How did no one see that sooner?)
For example, parents can write on behalf of their kids (like we do), or teachers can write on behalf of their pupils at school, grandparents for their grandchildren etc.

Each site relies solely on its contributors to provide content in the form of written reviews, which the site then categorises by various criteria.

The site provide the infrastructure but the content is purely down to the community's contributions and that's what makes it even more of a genius idea - ensuring that the site is always full of fresh reviews.

Folk who use the site can also follow each other, like each others reviews (or dislike them) and the whole thing perpetuates itself virtually. For "free".

So back to the original question, do 'review by proxy' sites damage book blogs? Will most book bloggers just end up chucking in the towel to take up residence on Toppsta or a.n.other reviews site instead? After all, why go through the effort of setting up your own blog and watching your hits dwindling to nothing year on year when you can (in 5 minutes flat) set up a profile on someone else's site, and get reviewing straight away!

It's a good question and one that's had us thinking long and hard. With several publishers actually advertising the fact that their titles are covered here (and on other proxy review sites), it feels like this is the future of book blogging - or at least book reviewing.

The main appeal of Toppsta is that a lot of the reviews are "written" by kids (I put "written" in quotes there simply because I know from first hand experience what it's like getting Charlotte to write a review. It's a long painful process so instead the reviews are still distilled from observations and notes made on what she thinks of books rather than watching her painfully peck away at a keyboard for several hours to come up with 50 words that basically say "I like this book, it's really good").

Kid reviews are both awesome and terrible. Some kids are capable of writing a really worthwhile opinion that's going to instantly tell an author, artist or publisher whether they're successfully hitting the right notes. Other kids are sweet and hilarious in what they write (and quite often brutally honest, which is always great to read on any reviews site).

But if there's one thing that review by proxy sites should establish early on, it should be some sort of  'reward programme' for its reviewers.

As an example, Toppsta (and I'm sorry if I keep singling them out but if you're the relatively "new" kid on the block garnering the most attention, that's the way the cookie crumbles alas) do offer the chance to win free books for the best reviews but it's not a done deal that your review will net you prize - though to be fair if you read Toppsta's FAQs they have made it abundantly clear there and have also laid out what their mission statement is plainly and clearly too (other sites should definitely follow by example).

ttps://toppsta.com/page/help

Again with a but - there's one thing kids really do not need to 'get used to' though, it's working for nothing and reviews are work, no matter what your opinion is on the worth of the end result.

It feels exploitative in the same way internships can be in some companies, where an intern is basically brought in for little or no wage to gain some experience - but I guess no one would be quicker than me to point out that in the case of proxy review sites it's all entirely voluntary. No one's actually twisting your arm to write your content and you're free to come and go as you please or even (rather generously) propagate your reviews to other sites (which could lead to another question about the owner of your 'copy' but I wouldn't even want to try and legally pick that one apart).

It sounds a little selfish to imply that all parents and kids, teachers and grandparents should begin by asking "What's in it for me?" when someone asks you to write something for nothing, based on something you own. But let's get this straight. No site will survive without content, and you are providing that content and also giving up your most valuable commodity often for nothing.

Time.

Your time.

Your time which could be spent doing a multitude of other things - playing, climbing trees, riding a scooter or (heh) reading fantastic books. Without a huge willing free workforce to provide content, any site would be dead in the water within a very small space of time.

As well as asking "What's in it for me?" I guess you should also be asking "What's in it for them?" - After all they're footing the bill, going through all the hard work of setting up a site, registering with ISPs, hiring (we hope hiring) graphic designers and writers to make sure the site pops. So what IS in it for them?

Of course there is a buck to be made from advertising revenues, click-through 'buy a book' links (Again, very nice to see that Toppsta uses wordery.com rather than Amazon which is a step in the right direction) otherwise sites just wouldn't bother would they?

So you can see the worth in establishing a brilliant social presence based on a love of books for all the other rewards setting up such a site will bring. Once again I really do wish to make it clear that there are many, many review by proxy sites out there all working towards the same aim of self-sustenance through content contribution and though I've mentioned Toppsta a lot here as one of the better examples of the direction you'd hope these sites will go in, you will find countless other sites doing a similar thing so I really don't want to single them out and sound like I'm being overly critical of what they're doing there. Not at all.

So, phew, there was a point to be made here somewhere - is this all good news or bad news for book bloggers? It really does depend on how much you're willing to "up your game". Some bloggers have been lucky enough to turn their passion into a career of some sort (hand up in the air, have failed miserably at this - no one wants an untrendy opinionated 48 year old baldy as any kind of a book person or children's reading consultant I'm afraid - unless you want to prove me wrong!) but quite a few will fall by the wayside when bigger sites eat into their hit counts, and I think that's a crying shame.

No one really wants to talk to an empty room though after all, and I think it'll be a sad day if the 'norm' becomes a proxy review experience rather than a beautifully written blog that someone's poured their heart and soul into (and we're not talking about ReadItDaddy, we do our best, but if you do want to find some real diamonds amongst the coal, go back to the front page and check out our Blog Roll of other fantastic book review sites that do a brilliant brilliant job in a far more personal way).

This week's ReadItTorial was partially inspired by Keza McDonald's musings on being a videogame reviewer as detailed on Kotaku a few weeks back.

The article was, overall, a bit of a "New Games Journalism" style article,  stating a fairly obvious point (no one over a certain age will ever 'get' videogames, ho ho ho) but I wholly agreed with the core point of the piece.

Writing about videogames (which once upon a time I did for a couple of websites) for a living and telling people that you do so is akin to the subject I'm rapidly trying to get around to here.

Now, fellow book reviewers, you may have encountered this too but without meaning to draw some ridiculously sexist statement out of thin air to completely undermine this piece, you probably get this happening to you a lot less if A) you're female and B) have children so bear with me as I only tick one of those boxes.

Writing about children's books as a 48 year old dad (with no discernible hipster cred other than a straggly beard) is a tough gig.

I don't think it has anything to do with personal aesthetics per se (though obviously the prettier you are, sadly the more marketable you also are and it's pretty obvious that if you're a YouTube Makeover Sensation or - you know - a proper 'celeb' whatever the heck that is these days, with a zillion Twitter followers you can turn your hand to reviewing books in the time it takes for a marketing executive to draw up a contract).

It does have a lot to do with the perception that if you're a 'grown up' man (and I use the term 'grown up' very very loosely in my case) who fesses up to being passionate about, talking about, and writing about children's books, to put no finder point on it you're going to be seen as being a bit bloody weird in most people's eyes.

I've made a habit of collecting and counting and mentally documenting those weird sideways glances, the uncomfortable silences or the stilted fake laughs you get as if you've just politely informed the person you're conversing with that you like to wear cats on your head and have a penchant for rubbing your chest hair with squirrel oil.

At Charlotte's school, I get the thousand yard stare from Charlotte's teachers when I try to talk about her reading achievements through the blog, and the way we write reviews - not to mention the sheer volume of books Charlotte reads (which of course doesn't cut any kind of credit when it comes to her having to read some of the utter bilge she's given to work her way through at school, having to write a reading diary about books she'd never touch in a million years off her own back even though she's long been a 'free reader').

Likewise at hometime I get the two-thousand-yard stare from other parents every time I bring the blog up. Some are mummy bloggers who don't think it's odd to review juice boxes, beauty products or bottle warmers, yet reviewing children's books seems to be a subject they just can't wrap their heads around (though as soon as they hear the idea it's amazing how quickly they start covering books on their own blogs themselves!)

At my largely male-dominated workplace I once mentioned the whole blogging thing to my line manager who was asking what I do in my spare time before uncomfortably shifting in his seat and giving that polite little nervous half-laugh once more. I'm not really sure that the reaction would've been that much different if I'd fessed up to blogging about funicular railways or the mating habits of Venezuelan Fruit Bats, blogging is unfairly still seen as something that people do when they've got verbal diarrhoea with no outlet for it.

Friends and family are a little better though this may be largely because they see the direct results of this blog in Charlotte's reading abilities, and the way she reading enhances her curiosity and knowledge, so perhaps they understand it and tolerate it more because of that.

I think the only people I don't get weird reactions from are other booky folk, who (thank goodness) really do not give a tinker's fig what you are, what you look like, what your social standing is, whether you're male or female, what you do for a day job or (most importantly) how big your knockers are so long as you can talk good book.

I sometimes wish I'd masked my identity a lot better though, perhaps even pretended to be a gorgeous slim yummy mummy with acres of cleavage in my profile pic (hah!) - part of the reason I don't go to a lot of book events is partially because A) I have massive anxieties and shyness when it comes to getting out there and meeting folk anyway and B) I'm secretly fearful of getting that double-take reaction at book events where I'd already be way outside my comfort zone.

I wonder if other book bloggers feel the same way sometimes. I guess I really can't wait until Charlotte's properly old enough to either take the blog on and write more articles herself, or just decides that social media, mobile phones and boys are better than books (grud forbid that day ever arriving!)

When Charlotte was very young and just developing her own language skills, wordless picture books were a fantastic way to let "Daddy" take a back seat and let her actually relate the tale.

Visual language - illustrations of course - are the reason that children's picture books are still such a huge draw (if you'll pardon the pun).

Even though Charlotte will firmly maintain that most picture books are 'for babies' we both still crave picture-heavy stuff. But what of wordless books? Do they still retain their magic now that Charlotte is a competent and confident reader?

We recently picked up Aaron Becker's fabulous "Journey" series where the whimsical and adventurous plot unfolds entirely without words. A female hero makes her way into a dreamy surreal land, tripping between 'real life' and a fantasy realm and instantly challenging the 'reader' to tell her story in their own way.

With "Journey", "Quest" and "Return" forming the trilogy, we were on the edge of our seats as the adventure opened out. Moments of peril, of triumph, plotted in such a fantastic way once again let Charlotte firmly tell me her own interpretation of the tale - and if there's one thing all adults need to learn, listening to your child let rip with their imagination is one of the most splendid pleasures you can enjoy when they're young.

Wordless picture books are of course a huge benefit to children who aren't confident readers, or indeed adults who lack the confidence to read aloud to their kids for one reason or another. I have nothing but huge admiration for authors and illustrators who can 'script' a story in wordless form, where the emphasis is placed firmly on the visual language being universally 'translatable' to the point where even with some wiggle room for your own interpretation of the plot, the characters and the audience will arrive at their destination conveying a solid message.

I think we've seen one or two instances where the wordless picture book format has been stretched far too thin, perhaps too open to a wider perspective, where the tale's track gets obfuscated and lost but it's a rare thing and I think once authors and illustrators get used to the fact that their storytelling medium will not feature words, merely pictures, they can really start to have fun with the format and let their own imaginations go to town on it.

I thoroughly recommend Aaron's books if you haven't already encountered them, and of course we're always interested to hear your own wordless book recommendations in the comments below.