‘Real ones know!’ Stormzy namechecks Malorie Blackman and Jacqueline Wilson

The rapper’s song Superheroes tips hat to the Noughts and Crosses author and quotes from the theme tune to Tracy Beaker

Arthur Pita: Ten Sorry Tales review – six feet under and surreally shipwrecked

Pita’s adaptation of Mick Jackson’s children’s book mixes mime, acting, song and dance to pleasingly twisted effect

Liz Hyder: ‘I feel like I’m in a weird cheese dream’

The author of acclaimed YA book Bearmouth on striking gold in a slate mine – and what you can’t learn from other writers

Judith Kerr remembered by Lauren Child

The former children’s laureate on the beloved author’s fascination with the ordinary detail of life – and an encounter with David Beckham

The Tailor of Gloucester review – tabby triumphs in custom-made show

Brightly designed, this jaunty version of Beatrix Potter’s seasonal tale boasts a scene-stealing Simpkin the cat

Oi Frog and Friends! review – a wild time for fans of rhyme

Jumpy new student Frog overcomes his starting-school nerves in this exuberant musical adaptation of Kes Gray and Jim Field’s picture books

Olga Shipperbottom obituary

Other lives: Long-serving head of the children’s department at a Manchester bookshop

Sister act: how Little Women has come of age on the big screen

In Greta Gerwig’s new film of Little Women, the March girls wrestle with sexual politics and creative fulfilment. How true is it to Louisa May Alcott’s vision?

#NotAllMrMen: Mr Clever is a smug, sexist mansplainer. Should he be cancelled?

A student is outraged by the character’s patronising attitude towards Little Miss Curious – but Mr Clever gets his comeuppance in the end

Best children’s books of 2019: from picture books to young adult

Imogen Russell Williams picks beautiful illustrations, fun books to read aloud and new YA from Malorie Blackman and Philip Pullman

Waterstones chooses books of the year ‘for a better, kinder world’

Greta Thunberg’s speeches and surprise hit The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse have together defined 2019, say booksellers

Debut author of Queenie caps success with Costa prize shortlisting

Candice Carty-Williams, who began writing to improve representation of black British characters in fiction, joins 19 other authors contending for prestigious book of the year honour