Mostly Book Talk

We talk to Bex Hughes about the upcoming Canterbury Children's Literature Festival which is on the 9th - 12th of July and also about Book Shop Crawl UK which hosts book shop crawls in cities around the UK. You can find out more about all the exciting events on at the Canterbury Children's Literature Festival here . And check out up coming book shop crawls here . Send us a message

In September 2026 all UK Secondary Schools will receive two copies of the book Scientists Making a Difference by Dr Shini Somara together with a pack of resources. This is a collaboration between publishers What on Earth!, the Gatsby Foundation and Imperial. We talk to teacher Jennifer Marchant who created the school resources to discuss the book, what schools will find in their pack and how they...

Join us as we talk to lead curators Alison Bailey and Laura Walker, of the British Library's Fairy Tales Exhibition. This interactive and child friendly exhibit is on until 23 August 2026 and covers many familiar tales as well as lesser known stories.  They have brought together interactive displays, theatrical design, story sharing spaces, costumes and activities, as well as some great examp...

Join us talking to Mayo Agard-Olubo about his debut picture book, Kid Rex to the Rescue , illustrated by Diane Ewen. Max's imagination transforms him into the superhero Kid Rex, and he's ready to use his dinosaur powers to battle robots, dragons and even the evil king dust bunny. A fun bedtime story and definitely one for dinosaur fans. Mayo's website can be found here . His BBC Sou...

Following on from episode 48 when we went through the Carnegie Medal for Writing shortlist together with expert Carnegie followers Alison Jewitt and Amy McKay, in this episode we go through the Carnegie Medal for Illustration shortlist and make some more ill fated predictions for the winners. Alison Jewitt is an English teacher at the London Nautical City of London Academy has led a Carnegie shado...

Join us as we talk with author Malcolm Duffy about his YA book Dead Straight Line. This is his fifth book and is inspired by a teenage game of traveling in a straight line through, over or under obstacles. Rory pressures Yell into the game, with life changing consequences. The book explores risk taking, blame, guilt and shame as well as empathy and forgiveness. Written in a sparse and pacey style,...

Together with expert Carnegie followers Alison Jewitt and Amy McKay we go through the Carnegie Medal for Writing shortlist and make our ill fated predictions for the winners. Alison Jewitt is an English teacher at the London Nautical City of London Academy has led a Carnegie shadowing group in her school for many years and this is her third year helping us review the list. Amy McKay is the librari...

Join us as we chat with Cindy Wume, Taiwanese author and illustrator, about her new picture book, Home is a Hug. The book imagines all the different ways in which we can think about home. It has interactive elements with cutouts and flaps and lots of great details to seek out when reading it.  Find out about her journey from Taiwan to Cambridge, her creative process and discover how her travels an...

For the National Year of Reading , we are sharing a series of short conversations with people who are involved in promoting reading with young people. This could be a programme, resources or a literary event, and we're giving them the opportunity to share what they do and how people can get involved. In this episode we talk to Lara Marshall, Libraries and Engagement Manager and Tom Norton, In...

We talked to Jeffrey Boakye and tried very hard to stay on the topic of children's books (and mostly succeeded). We talked about his middle grade series which starts with Kofi and the Rap Battle Summer , his books on music - Musical Truth and Musical World and what he is currently working on. We detoured into what everyone got up to in the 80s and 90s when there were only four TV channels and...

In this episode we talk with poet Nicola Davies about the Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award (CLiPPA). The CLiPPA is the UK’s leading prize for poetry for children and each year highlights outstanding new collections for the young and very young. She takes us the through the 2026 Shortlist and we also talk about her her role as the Children's Laureate for Wales and quite a bit about...

For the National Year of Reading , we are sharing a series of short conversations with people who are involved in promoting reading with young people. This could be a programme, resources or a literary event, and we're giving them the opportunity to share what they do and how people can get involved. In this episode we are joined by Tom Harbour the CEO of Learning with Parents . Learning with...

For the National Year of Reading , we are sharing a series of short conversations with people who are involved in promoting reading with young people. This could be a programme, resources or a literary event, and we're giving them the opportunity to share what they do and how people can get involved. In this episode we are joined by Sarah Satha the Chair of Inclusive Books for Children . Incl...

We talk to author Molly Harris about her new picture book Whirby , illustrated by Jacob Souva . Whirby is a robot and his favourite activity at school is bot battles, but in his excitement about getting ready he forgets to get any rest and recharge his batteries and when it comes to his turn in the competition he has no energy left. Can he recover and do what he really enjoys? A great book for bed...

For the National Year of Reading , we are sharing a series of short conversations with people who are involved in promoting reading with young people. This could be a programme, resources or a literary event, and we're giving them the opportunity to share what they do and how people can get involved. In this episode we are joined by Louisa Farrow from The Federation of Children's Book Gr...

In this episode we are joined by author Rashmi Sirdeshpande about her new books - Hari Kumar Ultimate Superstar (illustrated by Mamta Singh ) which is a diary style middle grade and Super Uma (illustrated by Nakul P. ) which is picture book with lots of sparkle and the all important unicorn. Rashmi is as ever super busy with a number of new books coming up (details of the books mentioned below). S...

For the National Year of Reading, we are sharing a series of short conversations with people who are involved in promoting reading with young people. This could be a programme, resources or a literary event, and we're giving them the opportunity to share what they do and how people can get involved. In this episode we are joined by Imogen Bond from EmpathyLab EmpathyLab develops, activates, a...

For the National Year of Reading, we are sharing a series of short conversations with people who are involved in promoting reading with young people. This could be a programme, resources or a literary event, and we're giving them the opportunity to share what they do and how people can get involved. In this episode we are joined by Emma Bell, CEO of Chapter One . Through their volunteer readi...

For the National Year of Reading, we are sharing a series of short conversations with people who are involved in promoting reading with young people. This could be a programme, resources or a literary event, and we're giving them the opportunity to share what they do and how you can get involved. In this episode we are joined by Amy Lewis, Head of Coram Beanstalk . Coram Beanstalk work with p...

For Part 6 we asked all our interviewees for one thing they would do to address the reading crisis. Properly funded libraries and librarians were unsurprisingly a strong theme, but also a rethink about how we position children's reading - how do we find the space for children to read and support children to experience the power and enjoyment of reading so they find their own routes into readi...

For the National Year of Reading, we are sharing a series of short conversations with people who are involved in promoting reading with young people. This could be a programme, resources or a literary event, and we're giving them the opportunity to share what they do and how people can get involved. In this episode we are joined by Andrea Reece who is the Managing Editor of the children'...

In this episode we talk with Nadia Shireen about the mad and upredictable world of Grimwood and book five in the series, Rock the Vote! which has recently come out in paperback.  Listen in to find out where Nadia gets her ideas from, how she writes, why illustrations are so important and what Titus's best cake would be. Nadia can be found on Instagram here Her Grimwood books can be found here...

In this episode we talk to author Sophy Henn about her new picture book I Want Everything! - which is about how sometimes it might feel like you want everything, but when you really think about it you probably don't... We also discuss the latest installment in her action packed and madcap Happy Hills graphic novel series, Cheesy Bob Strikes! Sophy can be found on Instagram here And the books...

In part 5 we continue looking at what works to support reading for pleasure, focusing more this time on opportunities for authors to engage with readers and the importance of wider family and community involvement and spaces to discover and talk about books. For this series we interviewed the following people (not all feature in every episode): Dapo Adeola - Author and the illustrator of many book...

We are joined by author Sarah Crossan to talk about her new verse novel, Gone for Good . It is a read in one go thriller about the troubled teen industry. Sixteen-year-old Connie is kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken to a 'behaviour modification programme' at Silver Lake and quickly gets drawn into the mystery of where missing resident Belle has gone to. We also talk about Sa...