Our Second Book of the Week is a really innovative take on a graphic novel for kids. Not only is it wordless, but there are multiple ways to read it! Bring on "Knight and Dragon" by Matt Gibbs and Bevis Musson (Improper Books)...

Surreal and superb illustrations and a fascinating glimpse into the world of one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th Century. Our first Book of the Week this week is "Miro's Magic Animals" by Antony Penrose...

Happy World Book Day! Yes, today is the one day in the year when I sincerely wish I worked in a profession that allowed me to dress up like my favourite book character and join with all the fun and festivities.

Sadly the "Sucky Day Job" (which I only call "The Sucky Day Job" purely because it wasn't really what I'd imagined I'd be doing "When I grew up) doesn't allow for such frivolities so I'm likely to join in vicariously and spend the entire day green with envy as I follow the fun on Twitter and Facebook.

So today's editorial is a bit of a two-pronged thing. Firstly, it's a bit of a musing about writing a book blog in our dwindling spare time. There's sometimes still an assumption that this is our day job, and somehow we're eminently available to wait in for book parcels from 'knock and go' couriers, or attend launch events, trot off to book festivals or magically free up a few hours in a normal working day to work on time-critical articles and reviews.

I so wish that was true. I'm so glad that most PRs we deal with really understand that we can't commit to anything other than promising to write our socks off reviewing their lovely books.

Location's also a killer. If I lived in London (as I once did 20 years ago) I would find it easy to nip along after work to launches - but once I'm done with TSDJ it's 5pm, I could get to the nearest transport into London by 5.30, traffic permitting get to London by 7, schmooze for a couple of hours listening to fascinating folk launch or talk about books, then I'd have to leave early and get back home in time for an exhausted collapse into bed.

"Wail moan wail" you're probably thinking by now. But I'm a writing machine, and despite this and (thankfully) an increasing amount of input from Charlotte into the blog, I could never imagine making a living out of a blog - not a living to support my family anyway.

Second point is about World Book Day itself. If there's ever a day to bring out the very best and the very worst in parents, it's any day where kids are ready to dress up as their favourite book characters. We'll swiftly ignore the 'hilarious' mum who dressed her son up as Christian Grey for WBD (look forward to years in therapy, kid!) and raise a non-alcoholic glass of fizzy water to the mums and dads who go all out to create fabulous costumes themselves so that their kids can go to school, contributing to this very special day.

Charlotte's school never seems to celebrate World Book Day on the actual day, but they do have book weeks later on in the year so we'll let them off the hook. We look forward to it because we usually come up trumps when it comes to thinking up costume ideas. My wife is ridiculously talented with a needle and thread, and is very arty and crafty - and I chip in as well with my meagre skills. There's something so satisfying about creating a costume from scratch rather than just clicking "add to basket" on some Disney Princess costume from the internet (Yes, yes we know your children love Frozen but do you have to dress them as Anna or Elsa every flipping year? Brian is getting a bit sick of it now).

I can't wait to see what people do, how they celebrate, the costumes they come up with and to hear the general excitement about books from all over the world, from people who (like us) love books so much that they'll go to any lengths to prove it, even dressing up! Bless you all, you really do all rock!

Damn this is good, so good!

Once again we're taking a look at some YA coolness in comic form and I'm flying solo leaving little miss behind for this distinctly 'grown up' graphic novel, "Porcelain: Bone China" by Benjamin Read and Chris Wildgoose...

"Rabbit wants his potty, what should rabbit do? Only one thing for it, SKIP TO THE LOO!"

Bruised, battered, stomped, muddy - Another book fell foul of a careless courier but thankfully was just about in a fit state to read and review. Thankfully because it's a rather splendid book at that. Mike Yamada's awesome "Cool Cat Versus Top Dog"

Most kids who read books will soon want to make up their own stories, and we've seen some truly brilliant children's activity books that show how to plot out a tale, how to construct your characters and how to begin writing your epic adventures.

Two new books from the British Library Press will be released on 3rd March 2016 under their new children's range, both written by Deborah Patterson and filled to the brim with classic illustrations to help generate the right atmosphere for stirring up your imagination.

"My Book of Stories: Write your Own Adventures" gets things off to a flying start by delving into a rich history of children's stories and taking inspiration from such luminous greats as "Alice in Wonderland", "The Wizard of Oz" and the utterly glorious "Swallows and Amazons".

The books are thoroughly researched and designed to be scribbled over (if you're one of those brave souls who can BEAR to write in books). There are plenty of spaces to include your own notes and plots, your own character descriptions and your own detailed and atmospheric settings for your stories.

We love how there's a section entirely devoted to drawing up a 'book world map' of your story's primary locations and some excellent ideas to plot the flow of your first zillion selling novel. Or at least perhaps an awesome story to share with your family and friends.

The second book seems perfectly timed to help celebrate  (if that's the right word!) the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death. In "My Book of Stories: Write your Own Shakespearean Tales" once again there are tons of inspirational ideas to draw on the methods and means "The Bard" used to produce some of his most important stories and plays.

It's a dizzying wealth of information packed between the covers of this handy pocket-sized reference that's perfectly sized for toting around with you, so you can delve into it for ideas at any time.

Both books are really impressive, probably the only criticism to note is that you might find it almost too much to bear to write in them (or to crack their spines so they lay flat for your notes and scribbles while you're tapping away at the keyboard or writing up your manuscript!)

"My Book of Stories: Write your Own Adventures" and "My Book of Stories: Write Your Own Shakespearean Tales" are out on the 3rd March 2016, available in paperback from British Library Press.

With a "WHOOP!" of glee, Charlotte greeted this latest book arrival with open arms. Any excuse to get mucky and she's there...!

Once again we're delving into the glorious (but strictly not for kids) library of Improper Books titles with a look at something distinctly dark but richly imaginative.

Wordless comics must be incredibly tough to write and illustrate but thankfully when you've got an artist as talented as Chris Wildgoose to interpret your scenes, it's very easy to pick your way through the tale as it winds itself around your cerebral cortex.

"Butterfly Gate" starts off relatively innocently, with two children at play, catching butterflies in a net and stowing them away in jars. One particularly striking specimen leads the girl and boy on a merry dance into the deep dark woods. In the darkest part, they find an ancient artifact - a crumbling stone statue and a giant altar.

By accident they discover that the statue is more than it seems. Blood spilled on the altar causes a mysterious door to open - a door filled with a shining blue hypnotic light that entrances the children and leads them to commit a truly unspeakable and terrible act in order to open the portal to another world...

(It's at this point I once again stress that this is a comic more suitable for a YA / mature audience! Certainly it does not pull any punches and is quite graphic. I won't get into the nitty gritty of trying to slap an age rating on it as all kids are different. But there is gore and violence, so be prepared!)

Once through the Butterfly Gate, the two children soon realise that life on the other side isn't exactly peachy. It's certainly no idyllic playground for children, and the harsh reality of the other world is that it's a brutal regime where child slavery is the norm - and the girl and boy soon find themselves press-ganged into service as divers for sunken treasure, working for a cruel overlord.

Is this to be their fate then? Well I couldn't possibly give away the ending - suffice to say that this is merely episode 1 of an eventual 5 book series so you're only going to get a taste of their story in this first volume but it will definitely leave you wanting to find out more.

With shades of John Carter of Mars, fused with darkly gothic themes, "Butterfly Gate" is visceral, brutal but oddly beautiful stuff - certainly as you'd expect from Improper Books who seem to have cornered the market in gloriously original and darkly woven tales such as this.

"Butterfly Gate" is available in print and digital formats (and there's an excellent 12 page preview here too!) from the Improper Books website.

http://www.improperbooks.com/project/butterfly-gate/

Are you one of those people who always seems to get into trouble even if most of the time it's not actually your fault?