Everything With Words, Nothing by Numbers

An interview with Mikka Haugaard, founder and publisher of Everything With Words.

‘Readers want to be taken by surprise. They want something that’s fresh and special.’ So shares Mikka Haugaard, founder and publisher of Everything With Words, and a writer herself, in a statement that cuts to the core of what makes her publishing house so distinct. Namely, furnishing readers, from 6-year olds to teenagers and adults, with refreshingly-voiced stories that typically suggest atypical ways of experiencing the world. Similar to seeing a Puffin or Picture Lions logo on books of yore, the Everything With Words owl, with its jaunty pose and wide-eyed gaze, signifies that something special is in store. In fact, 20% of the children’s books published by Everything With Words have been nominated for the Carnegie Medal.

Ahead of celebrating its tenth anniversary next year, the 2026 schedule, packed with space pirates, wild griffins and secret gremlins, along with a sarcastic goat, and two teenagers trapped in a time loop, showcases everything Everything With Words does best. That is to say, it’s a delicious smorgasbord of voices that embody its founder’s devotion to publishing books that centre storytelling excellence, and children’s reading pleasure.

Mikka’s love of language falls into focus when she speaks of her background. Born in Denmark on the tiny island of Bornholm, Mikka’s family ‘travelled all over Europe, particularly Italy and Spain’ through her early childhood. ‘I first went to school in a seaside town called Scuari, an hour’s drive from Naples. I came to the UK at the age of nineteen and studied Classics at Cambridge — I’ve always liked languages.’ Moreover, Mikka’s grandfather and great-grandfather both wrote fiction, and her father was a children’s book writer, and translated the Complete Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Incidentally, young Mikka had the joy of hearing secrets about The Borrowers from Mary Norton herself, a neighbour and family friend, over a gin and tonic: ‘The secret was a lot of gin, hardly any tonic, and a glass that was more like a vase.’

When I ask Mikka what drives her editorial ethos, her priority is clear: ‘Look for talent — it’s rare, but when it’s there nothing else matters.’ A case in point is one of the first books she published, The Wolf Road by Richard Lambert, which won the Mal Peet Children’s Book Award, and was selected as a Best Book of the Year by The Times, Sunday Times, Financial Times, and Guardian. ‘It had been rejected by all the major publishers and Richard sent it to me as a last throw of the dice. I took it because I felt it was a fine book.’

Having come to publishing ‘from an unusual route, from writing novels’, Mikka is focused on finding talent over following trends: ‘Don’t look back at last year’s fashion or bestsellers.’ She’s also unwaveringly devoted to the needs of readers: ‘We all like to agree with Auden that there are no good children’s books that are only for children, but you still have to consider the child, and how children respond to stories. They do seem to live inside them in a way that we just don’t. And books have to offer that possibility, that possibility of living within. And for that you need a blend of reality and the larger-than-life.’

That’s certainly the case with Hannah Moffatt’s Help! Aliens Stole My Grandad (May 2026), a comic cosmic caper that blends a boy’s very real experience of losing his grandfather with an amusing intergalactic pirate adventure. ‘Hannah has real comic talent and her writing is accessible but clever, and she wears it lightly,’ Mikka says of a writer whose debut, Small, was shortlisted for the Waterstones Prize and esteemed as a Times Book of the Week.

Though very different in style, D. T. Moorhouse’s glorious Grebs & Co debut (‘he’s very talented, and there’s something about this book that’s rather special’, says Mikka) also integrates everyday life with extraordinary magic when a girl called Alice falls into a letterbox and finds a secret society of letter-sorting, biscuit-loving gremlins. Through launching a campaign to save her community’s letter boxes, Alice realises that ‘small things such as biscuits, letters, tiny promises or even just words on a page really could change the world.’ This beautiful book (September 2026) very much chimes with Mikka’s core passions: ‘Growing up with Hans Christian Andersen, I love the blend of fairy tale and realism we find in his work. That’s what I look for: the blend of the real and the magical with a strong lyrical touch.’

That blend also runs through Luke Marchant’s Arthur and the Wild Griffin (August 2026) in which endearing Arthur embarks on a mission to save the mythical monsters of Fantasy Zoo from the clutches of an evil sorceress. Radiating courage and kindness, Marchant’s writing also showcases the special kind of storytelling that defines Everything With Words: it’s thoughtful, child-centred, and charmingly quirky.

Oliver Lendon’s No-Tune Ned (August 2026) also has child-pleasingly quirky characters at its joyful heart. ‘It’s wonderfully unpredictable and very funny,’ Mikka says of a debut in which a would-be bard bravely channels his discordant voice to bring harmony to his monster-ridden kingdom. Mingling a big sense of adventure with delicate messages around being proud of who you are, it’s a zestily fresh take on a classic quest.

Fresh takes are also a feature of Oran Doyle’s Give Me ’til Midnight (September 2026): ‘While I have a special affinity for middle grade, this year we’re publishing an outstanding YA novel, an exceptional debut,’ Mikka enthuses. And it really is special. Set in Dublin across 24-hours, it elevates the time-loop romance trope to tell an authentically-voiced, stirring story that explores loneliness, class privilege, and how we might escape lives that trap us.

All that considered, through tales that variously involve time-loop truths, tuneless bards, pink-feathered parrots, mythical beasts, and more, in doing nothing by numbers, Everything With Words has a habit of doing everything right to strike storytelling gold.

Joanne Owen is a writer, reviewer and workshop presenter. With a background in children’s publishing, she’s the author of several books for children and young adults, among them the Martha Mayhem series, the Carnegie Medal-nominated Puppet Master, and You Can Write Awesome Stories.