YOU DON’T NEED TO KEEP TOO KEEN an eye on the publishing trade to see that the business of writing and selling books for children has changed. In truth, it’s worth asking whether, prePotter (Harry, I mean), Books would have offered a competition such as the one that graces our cover this week – and many thanks to the splendid Quentin Blake for another stunning image.

I like to think that we might have . . . but I can’t be sure. This is not to say that Before Harry (BH), authors whose books happened to be read by children were all as poor as church mice, living on crusts and plucking their own scrawny hens for quills with which to write. BeatrixPotter, I do believe, did rather well out of Peter Rabbit and his chums – but, I venture to offer that it is only After Harry (AH) that Miss Potter would have had a film starring Renée Zellweger made about her.

Yet how is it that writers whose books are perceived to be “for children” (note my careful locution) have been catapulted towards the literary firmament?

Some dismiss the spectacle of grown-ups reading J. K. Rowling on the Tube (or the bus, or walking down the street, banging into lamp-posts) as part of “kidulthood”, responsible for as diverse a range of evils as baggy shorts and alcopops. Some say that Literature, with a grown-up L, has now crawled so far up its own, er, spine that no one cares any more: you know, all this postmodern rubbish full of characters called by the author’s own name and several different endings on offer.

I don’t think that either is quite the answer. Do you remember how thrilling it was to learn to read? I do. The world of childhood is where many things are beyond your control: when the world inside a book-cover becomes available to you and you discover something that is yours alone. It’s not the writer’s book – it’s yours, truly. You make the pictures in your head and do the voices. Working with the author, you bring the words to life.

The best books that can be read by children – and so, by adults too – have a sense of that excitement about them. Think of Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights; think of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden; think of E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. Think of them . . . read them again . . . keep writing, and send your novel to us! P.S: speaking of writing, regarding last week's column . . . thank you for your postcards!

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