Children's books

Carnegie medal winner Geraldine McCaughrean has castigated the books industry for dumbing down language in children's literature, warning that a new focus on "accessible" prose for younger readers will lead to "an underclass of citizens with a small but functional vocabulary: easy to manipulate and lacking in the means to reason their way out of subjugation".

Sales of Children's books in the UK fell short in 2017, but we can point to at least one distinct reason for that decline: 2016 saw Harry Potter & the Cursed Child earn £16m through BookScan from 1.5m copies. In the end, sales last year were down only £90,000 and 1.1m units, with growth for both established and emerging authors helping to close the gap.  Read more

The Bologna Children's Book FairThe Bologna Children's Book Fair or La fiera del libro per ragazzi is the leading professional fair for children's books in the world. 2018 has been a broadly positive event, with non-fiction on the rise and the UK market's Middle Grade mania continuing, though Bonnier Publishing's shock decision to shutter its Australian children's division sent ripples of concern through the halls.

In 2001, when Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider nailed his first mission in Stormbreaker, young readers took an immediate liking to this intrepid, high-tech gadget-wielding, teenage spy. And they clearly wanted to see more of him. Horowitz penned eight subsequent Alex Rider adventures in quick succession before announcing-unequivocally-that 2011's Scorpia Rising would be his last Alex Rider novel.  Read more

Hachette Children's Group's c.e.o Hilary Murray Hill has called on publishers to "act as agents of social change more than ever before".  Read more