Children's publishing is the jewel in the crown of British publishing.
Tony Bradman
Once the world has been created, the fantasy author still has to bring the story's characters to life and unfold a gripping plot. That's why good fantasy is such a hard act to bring off.
I don't usually like teen novels written in the present tense, particularly those told from a first-person viewpoint. Too many writers seem to believe that using either or both devices automatically imbues their stories with deep seriousness and a contemporary feel.
Mum told me stories about her time in the Women's Royal Navy, and about her dad, who had died before I was born - he'd been sent to Australia as a child, then joined the Australian Army in the First World War and fought at Gallipoli.
'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.
There are several occupational hazards for book reviewers, chief among them being the Curse of the Jaded Palate - that sinking feeling when you start reading a new book and begin to suspect that you've seen it all before.
I have to confess that I've never been a great fan of Christmas or, as it's known in our house, The Monster That Ate the Last Third of the Year. It's mostly the rampant consumerism I object to, but I'm also a little wary of the annual crop of new Christmas stories and sometimes wonder why anyone bothers.
I was delighted when Booktrust asked me to be chair of judges for the Booktrust Teenage Prize 2010.
My parents were of the generation that lived through the Second World War, but I grew up listening to my mother recounting her dad's tales about his terrible experiences during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 and later on the Western Front.
I know one author whose royalty income has been halved from £34,000 a year to £16,000.
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.
At school, we'd studied the Romans and the Saxons, and I was fascinated by it all. So I made my dad take me to the British Museum as often as possible.
I studied Wilfred Owen for my English A Level, and that led me to Sassoon and Blunden, Rosenberg and Thomas.
Sally Gardner must drive her publishers to distraction: no sooner have they worked out how to market one brilliant book than she delivers another that is just as brilliant but totally different.
Fantasy is a demanding genre.
If your characters are two-dimensional and your plot uncompelling, it won't matter how incredibly detailed and believable your fantasy world might be.
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.
