A while back, my editor called to tell me that “Annabel got a gumnut!”. My brain cast around for possibilities – was this perhaps the premise for a new, Enid Blyton-style story? Had Annabel, Again sold into a country with an anti-pistachio bias and had to undergo some editorial changes (which I would happily accept! Call me, anti-pistachio nations!)? Then she explained that no, it had simply been reviewed in the Children’s Book Council journal Reading Time, in which gumnuts are awarded to recommended books.

I haven’t seen the review, though I’m happy to have it, of course, but more than that, I guess I just wanted to say that it is a peculiarly lovely thing to work in an industry where praise is awarded on a sliding scale of gumnuts.