HAPPY WORLD BOOK DAY, everybody!!! For me, every day is a good day to read, but it's lovely that there's at least one globally recognised day when books are getting the official recognition that they deserve!

I've been very busy this week, doing online events with various schools -- I've included a couple of photos from an event I did on Tuesday, with Archbishop McHale College, in Tuam, Ireland. In fact it's been my busiest week of events in almost 6 years, since I was out on the road touring to support the release of the final book in my Zom-B series! I used to be reluctant to do virtual events, much preferring to actually visit venues in the flesh, but that's all changed over the last couple of years, mostly due to the pandemic -- it seems we all got used to doing Zoom calls and the like during that time, so now it seems like the most natural thing in the world both for me and the students in the schools! I'd still rather be going out there in person -- there's nothing quite the match of a real live event, where you get to sit eyeball-to-eyeball with an author and have your books signed -- but at the same time the online events allow me to cast my nets far more widely, and not have to worry about the logistics of getting from A to B to C to...

I thought, in a nod to the day that's in it, that I'd recommend five of my favourite books for older children and teenagers. I didn't think too long about it, just decided to make it a mix of older and newer books, and to avoid Big Guns that most of you will already be familiar with (e.g. Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, Lord Of The Rings). And the five I came up with are...

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Rebecca's World, by Terry Nation.

The Machine Gunners, by Robert Westall.

Holes, by Louis Sachar.

When The Sky Falls, by Phil Earle.

Any of those would be a great book to lose yourself in today. Enjoy!!!