These days it seems that every big, new, heavily promoted children's book is rather like the ghost of poor old Jacob Marley. Each one comes trailing a long, clanking chain of references - in the form of overexcited press releases and slightly hysterical jacket blurbs - to bestsellers of a supposedly similar nature.
More Quotes by Tony Bradman
'All Quiet on the Western Front' is just sort of there isn't it? Every single trope of the First World War, and anti-war writing in general, is in there.
I was delighted when Booktrust asked me to be chair of judges for the Booktrust Teenage Prize 2010.
I know one author whose royalty income has been halved from £34,000 a year to £16,000.
Children's publishing is the jewel in the crown of British publishing.
Philip Pullman and Jacqueline Wilson have both been writing for a long time. In 30 years, will writers of that quality have been able to serve the same sort of apprenticeship? Not unless they can make enough money now to live on.
In 1965, I was 11 and in my last year at Junior school. I was living with my mum and older sister in a rented flat in south London - my parents had separated when I was five and got divorced a couple of years later, which was unusual at the time. My dad was working abroad, and I hadn't seen him for several years.