"The most important periodical in the world of British children's books."
Sir Philip Pullman, CBE, FRSL
Bfk 274 September 2025
This issue’s cover illustration is from Sin Bin Island by Doug Naylor, cover illustration by Khadijah Khatib. Thanks to David Fickling Books for their help with this cover.
Dirk wants to be treated as non-binary, but they’re having a hard time persuading their parents not to call them ‘he/him’. Dirk is having a quiet coffee in a café when they are joined by Seren, who is from another realm, but trying to blend in and to find the Chosen One who could save a situation; she says it might as well be Dirk, or it might not. Unfortunately, someone who is listening only hears ‘Chosen One’, with …
Dirk wants to be treated as non-binary, but they’re having a hard time persuading their parents not to call them ‘he/him’. Dirk is having a quiet coffee in a café when they are joined by Seren, who is from another realm, but trying to blend in and to find the Chosen One who could save a situation; she says it might as well be Dirk, or it might not. Unfortunately, someone who is listening only hears ‘Chosen One’, without the ’not’, and things get complicated. While in the toilet, Dirk overhears two agents, Wormwood and Buzzard, bickering hilariously, but mentioning ‘mal-realmers’ as Seren had. When Dirk reacts, they are discovered, carted off to the secret base and made to wear a boiler suit that they are sure someone died in. There they meet many more characters, who all think Dirk is the Chosen One and treat them accordingly. …
BfK last interviewed Adam Stower in the summer of 2019. The second book in his King Coo series had just been published, and he was the illustrator of that year’s Summer Reading Challenge. We catch up with him this time to chat about his charming early readers series, Murray and Bun! Book four, Murray the Ghosthunter is out now, there are two more in the pipeline, and Adam, who thoroughly enjoys wr …
View Full InterviewIf you’ve got a teenager in your home – or worse, thirty teenagers in your RSHE classroom – you know how hard it can be getting young people to open up about ‘difficult’ subjects. It can be ‘incredibly awkward’ or e …
New term, autumn is definitely making its presence felt, and there’s a torrent of Christmas books arriving at the BfK headquarters, but let’s instead look ahead to 5 March, 2026 and next year’s World Book Day. The 1 …
Melanie Walsh of University of Washington shares her investigations into the subtle gender imbalance often at play in picture books featuring animal characters. I recently published a data analysis with The Pudding, …
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