From celebrity-penned tales to fresh interpretations of the classics, here is our pick of the best for hungry readers from tots to teens
Children’s books have had a record-breaking few years. The sector was worth £381.9m in 2017, according to Nielsen BookScan, and 2018 may well top that. One in every three physical books sold is now a children’s book. Judging by bestseller charts and supermarket displays you’d be forgiven for thinking that most of those were by celebrities. Famous faces certainly continue to sell in big numbers: David Walliams’s The Ice Monster (HarperCollins), David Baddiel’s Head Kid (HarperCollins) and Greg James and Chris Smith’s Kid Normal series (Bloomsbury) are among the year’s most notable. But beyond this, a rich and varied landscape of books for children and young adults is very much in evidence. This year, Jacqueline Wilson returned to her best-loved heroine in My Mum Tracy Beaker (Doubleday) and magical “middle-grade” fiction became the hot ticket, in adventures like Jessica Townsend’s Nevermoor (Orion) and Abi Elphinstone’s Sky Song (Simon & Schuster). Fresh interpretations of classics conjured up some of the season’s most beautiful gifts, including Lauren Child’s Mary Poppins (HarperCollins) and Jessie Burton’s The Restless Girls (Bloomsbury), illustrated by Angela Barrett. In picture books, the Oi! Frog series (Hodder) by Kes Gray and Jim Field began to challenge Julia Donaldson (and her various illustrators) in popularity. Poetry is having something of a boom, particularly anthologies like Chris Riddell’s Poems to Live Your Life By (Macmillan) and I am the Seed That Grew the Tree (Nosy Crow), gloriously illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon. Children’s nonfiction has seldom looked better and sales are soaring, led by Matthew Syed’s You Are Awesome (Wren & Rook) and Fantastically Great Women Who Made History (Bloomsbury).
Why such a renaissance? The stock answer is that children’s books offer an antidote to screen time. But I think it’s more profound than that. In troubled times, books have the power to help children and young people make sense of the world, and a look at 2018’s award winners reveals just how writers and illustrators are responding to our challenging times. Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’s The Lost Words (Hamish Hamilton), a winner at The Bookseller’s British Book Awards, is a symphony to the wonders and vulnerability of the natural world and a stand against the disappearance of wild childhood. Katherine Rundell’s The Explorer (Bloomsbury) and Geraldine McCaughrean’s Where the World Ends (Usborne), which claimed the Costa and Carnegie prizes respectively, are ultimately stories of bravery, survival and resilience. Stories for Boys Who Dare to be Different (Quercus) by Ben Brooks and illustrated by Quinton Winter, looks beyond gender stereotypes at alternative male role models and won the Specsavers National Book Award. Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, awarded the Amnesty CILIP Honour, is a political call to arms rallying against racism and prejudice, and its success is helping to fuel long-overdue investment in writers from more diverse backgrounds. Fiona Noble
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