Tackling complex themes for children

But that doesn't mean you can't discuss serious subjects - in fact, any subject - in a children's book, if you successfully manage the tone. Yes, young readers are at a crucial stage of emotional and intellectual development, indeed many at different stages. Some will be sensitive on certain issues, and every child needs to feel included in the stories they read. But mindful of all that, it is still possible, I believe, to address big subjects - whether it is grief or climate change.

And I'm interested in exploring these subjects through the dilemmas of characters, not passing down pat moral instruction or orthodoxies, that's not the job of writers. Children today are more connected to their world than ever before, whatever parental and school boundaries they live between, through devices and the constant background of 24 hour news and digital lives. They live in the shadow of issues such as climate change, and I think we owe it to them to provide narratives that navigate and explore such subjects.