What’s happening in children’s books in 2015? A literary calendar

Want to know when your favourite author has a new book out? What festivals are lighting up your holidays? When the awards are being dished out? Check out our literary calendar for 2015, the year the new Children’s Laureate is announced…

Authors and teenagers share the books that saved their life

From Judy Blume to My Mad Fat Diary to Catcher in the Rye, authors and teen site members share the books that saved their lives – on Blue Monday (whether or not it’s the most depressing day of the year!)

Railway Children’s audiences go loco for the play’s star attraction

With a real steam train on stage, Mike Kenny’s adaptation of E Nesbit’s novel has entranced theatre-goers of all ages, as the writer explains

Children’s reading shows simultaneous rise and decline. How can that add up?

The number of youngsters reading for pleasure has declined sharply, but this sector of publishing is booming – which results in some very strange maths, writes Claire Armitstead

Madeleine Kuderick’s top 10 books that explore mental health issues

It’s easier to talk about tough topics from the safety of a fictional character, so that’s why books can be parachutes in disguise, here are 10 of the best books to help you leap into the scariest conversations, chosen by Madeleine Kuderick, author of Kiss of Broken Glass which is based on her daughter’s experience of self-harm

We love the Gruffalo, what other books are great for our bilingual family?

The Book Doctor seeks out books for a German-English couple who want children’s books that reflect their duel heritage

Families in literature: The Clocks in The Borrowers by Mary Norton

Maev Kennedy: When I read it, the fantastic story of the miniature folk squirrelling away humans’ possessions seemed very real

Trans teens: What is ‘normal’ anyway?

Obsessing over whether you are normal or not can take up a frightening amount of your life when you’re a teenager. Lisa Williamson on why she has written a book about a boy struggling with gender identity and her joy at how teen fiction can now discuss the realities of life for young people today

Lionboy review – Complicite’s cat-powered adventure lacks claws

The Zizou Corder children’s story about a boy who can talk to cats packs in kidnaps and circuses, but somehow this adaptation fails to thrill

The Borrowers review – Mary Norton’s tiny adventurers take the stage

Theresa Heskins’s production makes ingenious use of outsize props and puppets to create a palpable sense of danger, writes Alfred Hickling

Clare Furniss on sick lit and why labels in literature aren’t helpful

Why leave it to a label to tell you what a book is about or who should read it?

Kate Saunders wins the Costa children’s book award with Five Children On The Western Front

Sequel to E Nesbit’s Five Children and It set on the eve of the first world war takes the Costa children’s prize

I love books so why do I hate studying English GCSE?

English had always been my favourite subject at school, but the stifling lack of book choice and boring analysis in the English GSCE has killed it for me

Announcing Young Romantics, a new creative writing prize

Newsflash: Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy leads a team of judges for the Keats-Shelley essay prize 2015 (open to 16-18 year-olds for the first time!) AND their new Young Romantics creative writing prize. Find out more about how to submit your poems, short stories and essays here

Esio Trot review – Dench sparkles, Hoffman is perfect; World’s Strongest Man

Lucy Mangan: This adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book about a love affair, starring Judi Dench and Dustin Hoffman and 100 tortoises, is a thing of wonder

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