Paul McCartney announces picture book, Hey Grandude

Set for a 2019 release, the former Beatle said his book about a magical grandfather is written ‘for grandparents everywhere’

Carnegie medal promises immediate action over lack of diversity

The UK’s oldest prize for children’s books is to be restructured after a report into failings that left 2017’s award shortlist entirely white

Fiction for older children reviews – many happy book returns

With a host of popular characters back this autumn, picking up from where you left off has rarely been more fun

Wizards, Moomins and pirates: the magic and mystery of literary maps

From Moominland to the Marauder’s Map, writers Robert Macfarlane, Frances Hardinge and Harry Potter cartographer Miraphora Mina unfold their favourite maps

Jokes about ‘snowflakes’ ignore the crisis in young mental health

My young adult novel about mental illness has been ridiculed, along with my call for greater kindness. But really, it’s not a laughing matter

The Little Prince review – the visitor from B-612 reinterpreted

Michael Morpurgo’s version of the most translated story in the world has his trademark clarity and emotional force

The 50 biggest books of autumn 2018

From Haruki Murakami to Michelle Obama, what to read this season

The Wonky Donkey: viral video of grandmother makes picture book a bestseller

A Scottish grandmother’s reading of the 2009 children’s book to her grandson has seen demand for it skyrocket around the world

The Hate U Give review – Amandla Stenberg shines in tough teen movie with radical bent

Stenberg lives up to her promise in a hard-hitting adaptation of Angie Thomas’ bestselling YA novel about a police shooting and racial strife

On the jungle trail: revisiting Kipling’s children’s classic

Katherine Rundell was thrilled by the idea of plunging back into the world of Mowgli, Bagheera and Mother Wolf ... but could she create a prequel to The Jungle Book without killing the magic?

The Lost Magician by Piers Torday review – in Narnia’s shadows

An intriguing homage to CS Lewis’s mythical world – but are the parallels too close?

Doctor Who regenerates as Little Miss for Mr Men books

Jodie Whittaker version to join series that merges sci-fi and childhood favourites

A touch of the macabre in children’s books is nothing to be scared of

Introducing kids to life’s more unsettling aspects is in fact a good idea, says New Statesman columnist Eleanor Margolis

Children’s and teens roundup: the best new picture books and novels

A slave’s escape, an Egyptian curse, a fairytale party and a squirrel called Cyril

Is my Jewish three-year-old too young to learn about antisemitism?

I stand by my decision to read her a young children’s version of the Anne Frank story, but some of my friends have objected, says author and freelance journalist Hilary Freeman