June Literary Review out now

What ho! It's that lovely time of the month again - the day Literary Review drops through your letterbox. Yes, the June issue is out now - and guess what? There's something really exciting in it - yes, that's right, it's a lost novel by James Joyce! Oh, no, sorry. It's not. It's my biannual children's round up. Still, that's fun, isn't it?

It features reviews of: Melvin Burgess' The Hit, Gillian Cross's After Tomorrow, Piers Torday's The Last Wild, Audrey Niffeneger's Raven Girl, Terence Blacker's The Twyning, Mary Hooper's The Disgrace of Kitty Grey, William Sutcliffe's The Wall, and F E Higgins's The Phenomenals: A Tangle of Traitors.

I'd suggest that you go and buy it now. Not to mention for the other toothsome treats in the mag.

Literary Review: Children's Round Up

My round up of children's books is in this month's Literary Review, a magazine so packed with jam it's like a bonus-sized jar of Bonne Maman. And don't we all love Bonne Maman. Mmmmm. Hold on a sec. Right, now that I've had my afternoon fix of toast and jam, I'll tell you about the review - I'm doing ten (mostly) creepy books for Christmas.

They are Anne Fine's The Devil Walks, Mary Hooper's Velvet, Chris Priestley's Mr Creecher, Lauren Oliver's Liesel and Po, The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean by David Almond, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again by Frank Cottrell Boyce, A Greyhound of A Girl by Roddy Doyle, Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp by Philip Pullman, and School of Meanies by Daren King.

In this issue you will also find out what the Hawaiian word for sulphur is - "kukae pele", or Pele's excrement (Pele the goddess, that is), and be introduced to Leet, the gaming language in an article by David Profumo; there's also brilliant stuff from Kwasi Kwarteng, Robert Irwin, Adrian Tinniswood, Claire Harman, John Gray, D J Taylor and bags more.

North Lanarkshire Catalyst Book Award Longlist

I've just found out the longlist for the North Lanarkshire Catalyst Award - and I'm thrilled to be on the same list as such brilliant children's writers. This is the full list:

* Day of the Assassins by Johnny O’Brien
* Dead boy Talking by Linda Strachan
* Drawing with Light by Julia Green
* Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper
* Firebrand by Gillian Philip
* Grass by Cathy MacPhail
* Halo by Zizou Corder
* Inside My Head by Jim Carrington
* Out of Shadows by Jason Wallace
* Poison Diaries by Maryrose Wood
* Return to the Lost World by Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore
* Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick
* The Bride’s Farewell by Meg Rosoff
* The Liberators by Philip Womack
* The Returners by Gemma Malley
* The Thin Executioner by Darren Shan
* The Witching Hour by Elizabeth Laird
* Time Riders by Alex Scarrow
* Unhooking the Moon by Gregory Hughes
* When I was Joe by Keren David
* Where I Belong by Gillian Cross
* Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide by William Hussey

The excellent Meg Rosoff; the marvellous Marcus Sedgwick; the brilliant Mary Hooper; Gillian Cross - who wrote one of my (and I'm sure everybody's) favourite books as a child, The Demon Headmaster... the list is a fantastic one, and I am so excited even to be mentioned amongst such company that I think I'm going to crack on with my next book so that I've got a chance of getting on it next year as well...

Literary Review Children's Round Up

That most wonderful of all literary magazines, Literary Review, contains this month (that is, June 2010), my twice-yearly children's round up. In it I review the following ten books:

A Web of Air by Philip Reeve
The Boy Who Climbed into the Moon by David Almond
Quicksilver by Sam Osman
Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore
Halo by Zizou Corder
Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper
Beswitched by Kate Saunders
Frightfully Friendly Ghosties by Daren King
Sylvia and Bird by Catherine Rayner

They are a sweetly varied bunch, ranging widely in style and content, and mostly containing a great deal of wit and charm (surely the two things that any children's book should have, at least in part). My particular favourites were Daren King's zippingly zany little book about massively over-polite spectres, and the beautifully rendered Sylvia and Bird by Catherine Rayner. I challenge you to read it and not be totally gripped. The review is unavailable online, so I suggest that, if you wish, you beetle on down to your local newsagents and demand a copy.