Pleasant Valley Monday

We told you ages ago about Derek Landy’s hook-up with the Richard and Judy Show’s Best Kids’ Books bunfight, and now it’s coming time to start chucking around the custard-topped muffins. Yep, the awards will be announced this coming Thursday at 8pm on Channel 4 (UK), with the terrific SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT nominated in the ‘Confident Reading’ section. If you happen to find yourself near a TV today around 3.30pm (GMT), you can catch Derek having a chin-wag with Richard and Judy on Channel 4, where he’ll no doubt be explaining how he came to (ahem) flesh out the bare bones of his skeletal hero. And if you can’t get to a TV, check out the promo vid below – we’re loving the tag-line “He’s Coming. A Little Thing Like Death Won’t Stop Him …”

Landy: Of Hope And Glory

Yet more good news for Derek Landy, folks. According to The Bookseller, Skulduggery Pleasant has been chosen as a contender in a one-off Richard and Judy children’s books special, to be aired on October 28th as part of Channel 4’s literacy season. Nominated in the third of the ‘Early’, ‘Developing’, ‘Confident’ and ‘Fluent’ reading sections, and with two winners to be announced from each section, the broadcast should see Skulduggery Pleasant go huge in the UK, where the Richard and Judy Show has become arguably the most important opinion-former. The full list of nominees is available at Beattie’s Book Blog. Meanwhile, Landy will be putting in an appearance at the Children's Book Festival, which takes place in County Clare from October 3rd-26th. To paraphrase Robert Louis Stevenson on Treasure Island: “If this don’t fetch the kids, they’ve gone rotten since I knew ’em.”