ToBeBooks

Hello, book people! I am the book content editor for Reactor Mag and I'm looking for 2026 sci-fi, fantasy, horror, romantasy, and speculative books coming out in the second half of the year! If you have an adult or YA SFF/H book out July-Dec (or publicist), share the link/info here!

Oh, I’ve got to start season 2 and I don’t know if it will ruin it. Feels like a Prison Break scenario.

World book day event madness tomorrow. I have my props (horse's head, giant snake, various beards, cuddly toy Mjolnir) and my hand sanitiser. Now I just need a clean joke to tell the kids if something goes wrong and I need to fill time. What's your favourite child-friendly joke?

Thrilled that my new pamphlet is available for pre-order from the wonderful @thebraag.bsky.social
thebraag.co/product/empi...
#ukpoets #poetrysky

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They do look fly. 🤩

Am I allowed to use the word fly? Or is that so Gen X of me.

Oh glory BE…

The ASFOS T-shirts and hoodies are now available at the Skulduggery shop. Wear Cadaver Cain’s grinning visage with PRIDE!

shop.skulduggerypleasant.co.uk/products/sou...

#kidlitUK #UKKidlit @sarahcrossan.bsky.social @simonandschuster.bsky.social

A fine adjustment to the lyrics. You should reach out to his people. I feel a remix or remaster is in order. They did it with Star Wars.

I wonder if they are kicking themselves now, seeing the success coming out of the Phoenix barn.

Did he? Wow, did not know that. There is a huge push at the moment to get kids into print news among lots of news outlets. I wonder if it could be pulled off now with all the newspapers pitching in a bit. Orwell society could be a shout too, to help run it.

I would love to see parks/play spaces and libraries amalgamate with a coffee shop so families can spend an afternoon together once a week. Any family with more than 1 child always has 1 rambunctious who needs to burn energy and 1 prolific reader. It allows everyone to have down time.

😂

Can’t read, won’t read and don’t have access to anything worth reading seems to morph into one gigantic blob. Where only can’t read solutions are applied to fix things.

Kids are wonderfully savvy, I would love to see a kids Private Eye now. I think it would be a hit.

a baby wearing a shirt that says varsity byga ALT: a baby wearing a shirt that says varsity byga

Suck it, she reads now. And! Has wonderful comic timing. That’s priceless.

😂

Basically, can we give the world back to kids and stop squeezing them into a digital world made by and for tech bros.

Laughed out loud 🤣🫶

It’s the serendipitous nature of reading lots of different stuff in the real world, kids now don’t get a chance with
this.

That said, all media really. How many kids now grow up with generational viewing or listening? Kids and adults peel off into silos of entertainment.

‼️Banger alert‼️

Hardback copy of The Destiny of Minou Moonshine, by Gita Ralleigh. The illustration shows a young girl riding in the back of a golden brown elephant among white flowers in the moonlight. In the background, hills, golden minarets and a dome. Why do I like it? Well, there’s a brave and endearing heroine, and the queendom of Moonlally in Indica, which has been usurped by a wicked general has a whiff of colonial India about it which I loved. There are real and mechanical elephants, bats, crocodiles, an inventor, a graveyard poet, a map and a secret. Is that enough for you? But what I really love about it is the writing. It is special. Everything about Moonlally is magical except there is no magic. Everything is beautifully but precisely evoked. You feel yourself there and it’s one of those fictional places where you’d really like to live.

Every Wednesday that I remember, I will post a children’s book I’ve enjoyed.

If you’ve read it too, or you want to share another book, join in!

The Destiny of Minou Moonshine, by Gita Ralleigh.

Why do I like it? Read the alt text!

#ukkidlit #kidlituk

Alas, Dave’s are never mysterious which is why one can always trust a tradie called Dave. Dave’s are reliable, open books. Daves will tell you it’s cheaper to order the part and fix it yourself. Daves will tell you that you can get away with a skim rather than a full plaster. A cross they bear.

Ursula K. Le Guin — Nominate a Book for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction

It's time! Nominations are now open for the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, which will be given to a work of imaginative fiction, published in 2025, that reflects the concepts and ideas that were central to Ursula’s own work.

Reading for pleasure is situationally ideal in schools. In the sense, kids can get ‘free’ access. Free being in the freedom sense of the word. However, the temptation to educationalise the experience always creeps in. (Yes, I know educationalise is not a word). Schools can really kill joy in reading

Episode 40 - Author Sarah Crossan talks about her new thriller, Gone for Good - Mostly Book Talk We are joined by author Sarah Crossan to talk about her new verse novel, Gone for Good . It is a read in one go thriller about the troubled teen industry. Sixteen-year-old Connie is kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken to a 'behaviour mo...

📚 We’re joined by Sarah Crossan to discuss her gripping new verse novel Gone for Good, a read-in-one-go thriller set in the troubled teen industry.

We also talk about screens, social media & protecting time for reading for pleasure.

🎧 Listen now: https://loom.ly/J0vXeb8

#SarahCrossan #YAlit

a man in a military uniform salutes with his hand on his hat ALT: a man in a military uniform salutes with his hand on his hat

@louiestowell.bsky.social doing god’s work: Giving parents an assist to explain something.

Amid the discussions about how to get kids reading, I am remembering how many comics and other periodicals I read as a kid - The Funday Times, Oink, The Puffin Post, Private Eye (I was a precocious little shit), The Beano, 2000AD etc etc. Reading in tiny little bits can be v appealing.

There goes my favourite packed train hobby: Looking at other people’s phone screen while they sit and I stand like the peasant’s peasant. The serf’s amusement arcade.