Ugne Matuliauskaite,Ciara Myton andAnnabelle Coleman all work at Sweet Cherry Publishing, a multi-award-winning children’s book publisher. They all share their experiences with our podcast host, Will Chalk.

Abby Shaw - is a recent graduate from Media, Journalism and Publishing at Oxford Brookes University. Abby is an Editorial Assistant at Bloomsbury, in the Childrens Division.

Children’s books that accurately reflect neurodiverse characters and themes have been hailed as “the latest publishing trend” in 2023, as publishers begin to realise the commercial potential of a previously underserved reading market. At a time when more and more school children are being diagnosed as having special educational needs, research shows that class study of neurodiverse books can be helpful to foster inclusion and greater understanding of these conditions. In this podcast, Richard Woolley asks to what extent neurodiverse books are making their way into secondary schools, with expert commentary from the frontline of teaching from Jen Owen.

In this podcast episode, Lily Carreiro covers the trends following the rise in popularity of Young Adult book subscription boxes among readers, from their redefinition of the book as an immersive, collectable product, to their ability to draw together an active community of bibliophiles on social media. The widespread book publicity and online exchange of ideas that have followed among new generations have urged industry professionals to reconsider the YA book market’s own trajectory, but what can publishers do to adapt and thrive in the face of tenacious and assertive young consumers?

In this episode ofOxford International Centre for Publishing Podcast, Associate Trainee Tugce Bicakci-Syed dives deep into the topic of inclusivity in children’s & YA publishing. Drawing on the results of CLPE’s Reflecting Realities research, Bicakci-Syed explores how simply increasing diverse representation is not enough on the journey towards true inclusivity, particularly for children with SEND. Featuring the publisher Sanjee De Silva from Sweet Cherry Publishing on a discussion about their new imprint Every Cherry, the episode highlights the significant role of real-life experiences in achieving authentic representation and the research behind designing an imprint tailored for children with SEND.

Can you read this text without a hitch? Many children worldwide cannot say the same. In this episode of the Oxford Brookes Publishing podcast, distance-learning Master’s student Stephen Flynn explores findings from UNESCO’s “2023 Global Education Monitoring Report, Technology in education: A tool on whose terms?” Together with colleague and researcher Chandni Jain, he discusses a variety of topics and their implications for improving children’s literacy levels, includingOpen Educational Resources, concerns for representation and linguistic inclusion, and community libraries, citing one suchinitiativein Kenya that brings students, caregivers and teachers together to create a culture of reading.

Join me, Becky Grace, and children’s author Gianna Pollero, the genius behind the hilariously funnyMonster Doughnutsseries, as we discuss what it takes to be a children’s author. Drawing on writer and editor Susan Greenberg’s study on editing and the relationships within that process, we take you from agent to editor to illustrator, to find out how that team can bring your story from concept to printed book.

In this episode MA Publishing student Meri Millan discusses why publishers should care about preserving linguistic diversity and what role children’s picture books play in achieving it. She touches on some publisher-led initiatives to publish in the Ryukyuan languages, endangered languages native to Okinawa, Japan. As well as recommending her two absolute favourite picture books.

In October 2022, MA Publishing student Lucy Derges travelled to the Frankfurt Book Fair to investigate the current health of the children’s and young adult market, the coming global challenges it could face and how incorporating diversity, equality and inclusion though requiring additional investment offers opportunity.

With the numbers of children and young adults getting diagnosed with mental health conditions increasing, it’s more important than ever that we have open and honest discussions with our young people about mental ill-health. Mental health illnesses have for years, been shrouded in secrecy, with negative discourse surrounding them. So, how can the publishing industry destigmatise and encourage constructive conversations about mental health through our young adult books and begin a dialogue with our young people about their own mental health?