Children’s Literature News January 2026
Children’s book news for January 2026: festivals, awards, school publishing, comics events, national reading policy, literacy campaigns and major competitions shaping children’s and YA books across the UK.
Recommended reading books for primary & secondary aged children in the UK
Mark Drewery writes children’s and young adult fiction under the name M. Drewery, publishing work online and in print through his author website.
In 2013, he began a long-term self-publishing project built around a planned ten-book series for children aged 7–11. That series, Alien Hunter Conner Jones, follows three friends – Conner, Elise and Luke – who witness a spacecraft crash and are recruited by the ship’s robot pilot to track an escaped criminal.
Drewery’s YA novel Stolen Futures was published by Spaceboy Books in 2018 (ISBN 9780999786208).
He is also credited, with Rokeby School, as author of Half Human: The Prison Key, published by Spaceboy Books LLC in 2025. The publisher describes the book as co-authored and edited by the Rokeby Writing Team (Years 6, 7 and 8), and bibliographic records list the paperback at 294 pages (ISBN 9781951393526).
Half Human: The Prison Key was published by Spaceboy Books LLC in 2025 (ISBN 9781951393526).
Children’s book news for January 2026: festivals, awards, school publishing, comics events, national reading policy, literacy campaigns and major competitions shaping children’s and YA books across the UK.
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