by Nicola Davies, I was a geeky shy kid and when I went to secondary school I didn’t fit in. I concentrated on keeping my head down to keep the teasing to a minimum. But sometime in that first term, everyone had to do a talk in front of the class. My chosen subject was […]

by author Rashmi Sirdeshpande Never Show a T-Rex a Book is about a T-Rex who discovers reading, falls in love with books and learning and finds that the world is her oyster. Does anyone know what expression actually means?! So bizarre! But it’s the basis of the whole story: books as a gateway into absolutely […]

by Kat Dunn The first time I came out, I turned to a friend and said ‘I think I’m kinda gay.’ This is an exact quote from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when Willow realises her feelings for fellow witch Tara. It was the only language I had for saying this thing. This unsure, fledgeling thing […]

Patrice Lawrence is known for her incredibly popular, brilliantly written YA titles such as her debut Orangeboy, Indigo donut, Rose Interrupted, and publishing on 6th August is Eight Pieces of Silva. Winning both the Waterstones Book Prize for Older Readers and the YA Book Prize (2017) for Orangeboy, Patrice has continued to win recognition for […]

It is incredibly exciting to be able to interview Anna Fargher, author of Umbrella Mouse to the Rescue, for the FCBG’s stop on the blog tour. This stop on the book blog tour sees me ask Anna a series of questions that benefit those that have either yet to familiarise themselves with the book as […]

Zana Fraillon’s The Lost Soul Atlas is a magnificent tale of Twig and his quest to find his father in the Afterlife. A harrowing journey of memories, a life in tatters and a mysterious atlas guiding him. Full of rich language and vivid imagery.  Twig becomes homeless and is adopted by a group of children […]

by Jane Porter When I wrote ‘The Boy Who Loved Everyone’, I couldn’t possibly have imagined that it would end up in hot demand from schools welcoming children back to a strange new post-Covid socially-distanced reality. It’s sad to think that the exuberant piles of children in Maisie Paradise Shearring’s wonderful illustrations are now a […]

By Allan Sanders A Number of Numbers is the second book I’ve worked on with Amanda Wood and Mike Jolley.  Previously we worked together on The Alphabets of Alphabets – a collection of 26 illustrated alphabets which featured an alphabet of Birds, an alphabet of Creepy Crawlies, alphabets of Dinosaurs, Inventions, the Museum, People, Vehicles, […]

The Rules has just been published by Stripes. It’s a YA thriller about Amber who’s on the run from her dad, a prepper. Her whole childhood has been spent preparing for disaster and having to live by her dad’s rules which he scrawls on the walls. When I was writing The Rules in 2019, I […]

by Alex English As a child I always longed for adventure, but growing up in suburban Hampshire meant that excitement wasn’t always around the corner. In fact, not much happened at all. Instead, I looked to books to provide me with escape and I think that’s where my love for adventurous fiction started. The sort […]