Therefore, part of this story is about acceptance: after Fidge is initially very sceptical towards Minnie’s toys and stories, she eventually learns to accept them and happily go along with them for the sake of her sister. Due to how her not doing this led to Minnie’s accident, followed by how crucial Minnie’s information was to her when she was in Wimbley Land, this moral lesson is very present by the end of the book. As soon as I spotted this wonderful book in my local library, I felt a delighted spark of recognition – not only was this book something I’d have loved as a child, but as an aspiring author, this felt like someone firing an arrow of encouragement across all the other genres my book didn’t fit into. Could there be a household pet more mundane than a hamster? No. But there’s time travelling? Yes. Think of the jokes that were made by the “funny kid” at your school – they were often surprisingly sophisticated and fully capable of making the teacher laugh as well as the other pupils. So when you write your funny prose for kids, write it for yourself as well; your audience is always and ever the ten-year-old inside you. Make her laugh. Lissa Evans’s latest novel is properly funny. And like the four-year-old owner of the eponymous toy rabbit, Minnie (short for Minerva), who can’t pronounce her r’s, this book is also deceptively wise. Small Change for Stuart, Evans’s first children’s novel, was shortlisted for the Carnegie medal and the Costa children’s book award. One can imagine the elevator pitch for this new story: Alice in Wonderland meets Pixar’s Inside Out, perhaps, with a dash of Animal Farm, bearing in mind the animal dictator who has taken over Evans’s fantasy kingdom. Wed Wabbit belongs to a proud tradition of children’s fiction that uses fantasy and humour to convey complex and difficult ideas in a form that delights.

So I really appreciated all of the above: references to other literature, lots of subtext, and the openness to different interpretation. Katherine Rundell is the Heston Blumenthal of kid’s books: taking familiar classics that you know and love, shooting them through with a thousand volts, and serving them up in such a way that you feel like you’re reading them anew while remembering why you loved them in the first place. This short story about a boy whose festive decorations come to life one lonely Christmas Eve is a perfect exampleDurrell brilliantly injects absurdity into a stagnant life and shows the magic that can happen (whether the hero is up for it or not.) I love books where the characters are reluctant to deal with what’s happening to them, and in a way Adrian Rookwhistle is like a precursor to my unwilling heroine, Sorrel. (Although there are no elephants in Bloom, which I now realise is a mistake.) 3. The Borrowers, Mary Norton (Puffin) Lissa Evans is a great storyteller and the book is very funny as well as reminding us of the importance of celebrating and valuing the differences which make us all special and unique. Full of humour, Wed Wabbit would also make a wonderful read aloud story for enjoying and sharing. In this story of hope and endurance, we follow a scientist and her team during their search for the elusive 'Giant Arctic Jellyfish'. Honestly, I’m nearly 1000 words into the review and we’ve just about sorted the meat of the plot. Wed Wabbit pretty much defies description in that regard, but in the best possible way. It is an intensely weird premise and there is no point in pretending it is not—but then, Evans knows, and is entirely uninterested in, its level of weirdness. The mechanism by which Fidge, Graham and the toys get into Minnie’s book—much less get out again—is never explained and hardly dwelt upon. Wed Wabbit isn’t about believable world-building; it’s about using the structure of a quest narrative (free Wimbley Land from tyranny!) to intelligently parallel an arc of internal emotional development. Both Fidge and Graham need to let go of something that is holding them captive: Fidge, her refusal to give or receive hugs (which here are metonyms for affection and the vulnerability that comes with being demonstrative), and Graham, his terror of everything and his belief in the superiority of intellect above pragmatism or kindness. Both of them, in other words, have their own Wed Wabbits lurking in their hearts.

Have a go at drawing the characters of Wed Wabbit or the various Wimbley Woos from their descriptions in the opening chapters. Also the voice in the book was geared more towards older children, I think... Fidge is almost 11 but feels more like at least 14, and the text was too specific, for example: "And then it nodded at her captor, and Fidge was given a shove between the shoulder blades that sent her stumbling into the twilight." (94) Anthony Browne is another great example – the appearance of gorillas throughout the story, popping up in newspapers and on cereal boxes, creates a sense that something more than meets the eye is going on. Hannah’s sadness at being given a gorilla toy instead of fatherly love she craves becomes a magic, surreal night-time journey to the zoo and the cinema, complete with and a moonlit dance on the lawn under the watchful eye of topiary chimps. Books are absolutely crucial in getting us to think about new worlds': we speak to the award-winning author, Onjali Q Rauf

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David Almond introduces his new picture book, A Way to the Stars, a story about perseverance and finding a way to make dreams come true. Fidge needs to discover something about herself on this journey, and when she does, it is very affecting. In this surreal yet deeply sane novel, Evans deftly combines heart with hilarity, emotional intelligence with one-liners. Grownups buying Wed Wabbit for a child might be tempted to keep it for themselves. There may be many reasons for its failure – perhaps it just doesn’t appeal to your sense of humour – but often the difference between a funny line and an unfunny one is a matter of a changed word, an extra syllable, a clearer metaphor or crisper structure. The analogy often used is that of music: the line needs the right number of beats, it needs to sing (it often helps to read it out loud) and, like a good tune, a good funny line is instantly memorable . Hence the fact that my head is still stuffed with lines that made me laugh in childhood, and which constantly remind me of the level that I’m aiming for. Which brings me to… Aim: Children’s publishing is starting with a bang this year with the release of Lissa Evans’s latest children’s novel, a riotously funny adventure tale called Wed Wabbit. The story, ideal for readers aged 8-12, is about a girl called Fidge (short for Iphigenia), who lives with her dippy mother and four-year-old little sister Minnie. Minnie is obsessed with her furry red toy rabbit (the eponymous Wed Wabbit) and a picture book about the Wimbley Woos (an odd group of multicoloured creatures who speak only in verse), and the importance of these strange characters becomes more apparent as the plot progresses.

Wed Wabbit was shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal in 2018 and the Costa Children's Book Award in 2017. About the authorLissa went on to study medicine at Newcastle University and worked as a junior doctor for four years. However, she then decided to switch over to radio and television (which was much less scary), during which time she won a BAFTA. Lissa has written five books for adults and three books for children, including Wed Wabbit. She now lives in London with her husband and two daughters – and still reads any books she can get her hands on! Lissa Evans grew up in the West Midlands. She comes from a family of bookworms and spent most of her childhood trawling through her local library. But it’s us who can’t thank you enough/We know that your journey’s been rough/For such a brave fight/Your talents were right/You’re clever and stubborn and tough.”