1. #ReadingHour this is the moment in the Astounding Broccoli Boy where the pandemic which has held UK under a curfew finally ends. Been thinking about this ...

2. Almost without exception the YA / adult books that tell pandemic stories - from Contagion to La Peste to Wyndham - talk about how fragile civilisation is and how quickly it breaks down. As a children's writer ...

3. ... that was never an option because when you're writing for children you have an obligation to hope. But it turns out that this is more accurate than all the serious stuff ...

4. ... on the whole society isn't breaking down. Even though austerity has gnawed away at its foundations. People are by and large reaching out to each other and workers are - like this page says - becoming heroes.

5. The fact is most of us do feel that obligation to hope. You can win literary prizes by writing dystopia. But you will be wrong about the human heart.