Episode 80: Christmas Special with Frank Cottrell Boyce
Broadcast 26 December, 2020
We discuss festive favourites and the best new books of 2020 with special guest author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce, who joins us to celebrate the many ways that children's books help us to celebrate small pleasures and find the magic in ordinary things
Our guest
Festive Favourites
The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden
A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, illustrated by Edward Ardizzone
Father & Son by Geraldine McCaughrean, illustrated by Fabian Negrin
Moominland in Midwinter by Tove Jansson
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Box of Delights by John Masefield, illustrated by Quentin Blake
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Lucy and Tom at Christmas by Shirley Hughes
Books of the Year 2020
Picture Books
Julian at the Wedding by Jessica Love
Neighbors by Kasya Denisevich
The Song of the Nightingale by Tanya Landman and Laura Carlin
The Snowflake by Benji Davies
Middle grade
The Ghost of Gosswater by Lucy Strange
The Voyage of the Sparrowhawk by Natasha Farrant
Red Stars by Davide Morosinotto, translated by Denise Muir
The Good Thieves by Katherine Rundell
The Good Hawk by Joseph Elliot
The Book of Hopes, edited by Katherine Rundell
Teen and YA
The List of Things That Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead
The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
Non-fiction
Kay's Anatomy by Adam Kay, illustrated by Henry Paker
True Adventures series from Pushkin Children's
Streets of the World by Mia Cassany, illustrated by Agusti Sousa
Find the Spy by Zoe Armstrong, illustrated by Shelly Laslo
New discoveries
The Great Dog Bottom Swap by Peter Bently and Mei Matsuoka
The Misadventures of Frederick by Ben Manley and Emma Chichester Clark
Diana Wynne Jones - Chrestomanci series
Man on the Donkey by Hilda Prestcott
Find out more
Frank Cottrell Boyce on instagram
Image from the cover of The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden, illustrated by Barbara Cooney