Are kid's books too moralistic, worthy, or 'woke'? Andy Griffiths, Hilary Rogers, Tamuz Ellazam for Radio National's Top 100 Books

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Mark Finnell (0:07)

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Natasha Mitchell (0:38)

Your favourite Australian kids book?

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You and Me in the Land of Lost Things.

SPEAKER_5 (0:43)

Possum Magic.

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Kissed by the Moon by Alison Lester.

SPEAKER_5 (0:46)

Magic Beach, but also Sean Tan's The Lost Thing.

Andy Griffiths (0:49)

Seven Little Australians, I just love, and I think it's a deep psychological study of a wonderful family. And yeah, I was blown away when I re-read it.

And also Cole's Funny Picture Book.

Natasha Mitchell (1:02)

Loved that.

Andy Griffiths (1:02)

Maybe it hasn't aged well, but as you know, it's 130 years old, but it was endless. I could never get to the end of this book. Always something else jumping out at me.

Natasha Mitchell (1:12)

And so weird.

The current Australian Children's Laureate, Andy Griffiths is currently inspiring kids everywhere with weird and wonderful stories, including his own blockbusters like The Treehouse Series with illustrator Terry Denton, The Bum Trilogy and his latest with illustrator Bill Hope is You & Me and The Giant Knucklehead. Hey, ABC Radio National's Top 100 Books. It's on right now. And this year we are asking you to nominate and vote for your favourite Australian books of all time, including, I hope, what will be a stack of brilliant kids books. One happens to be right at the top of my voting card, and it's into some of your favourites that we dive today and into a few of the controversies firing up children's literature circles right now. Hilary Rogers was the publisher behind series like Go Girl, Zac Power and Billie B Brown, and with her co-author, Meredith Badger, she writes as Maddy Mara. Picture books and bestselling series like Dragon Girls, Max Beast and Itty Bitty Kitty, Tamuz Ellazam gets to read kids books every day. Lucky her as the manager of Readings Kids Bookshop in Carlton. And she did her master's thesis on representations of diversity in children's picture books. Come hang with us because it's story time.

Hello, Natasha Mitchell, joining you from Ngaam, Melbourne, on Wurundjeri and Kulin Nation Country. This is a place where great stories have been shared by people for over 60,000 years. Welcome to Big Ideas and to this special event for ABC Radio National's Top 100 Books.

Hey, I want to play a game to start with. And so I've asked each of our guests today to read a mystery passage from one of their favourite kids books ever and we're going to guess where it's from. So, shall we start with you, Hilary?

Hilary Rogers (3:27)

I peeped at her immaculate homework and began to feel a tiny bit inferior. It was a new and upsetting emotion for me, as ever since I set foot in Beringa East Primary way back in prep, I had always felt totally superior to every single person in the whole school, including the principal and also the district inspector. When he came around, she knew all her times tables and got all her maths right. She turned out to have a reading age of 14.6 years. She knew all the rivers of Northern New South Wales in perfect order.

My feelings of inferiority swirled into dislike and the dislike into absolute loathing. I was so sick with jealous resentment that I could hardly even bear to open my order from the tuck shop.

Natasha Mitchell (4:21)

And it was? Is it hating, Alison Ashley?

Hilary Rogers (4:24)

It sure is. And she hates with such a verve and a plum, doesn't she?

Natasha Mitchell (4:31)

What did you love about that book? This is on my list of favourites as well. Is it? We all hated Alison Ashley.

Hilary Rogers (4:37)

Yeah, she was so easy to hate. So Erica Yerkin is full of loathing for Alison Ashley because she is, as you can hear from that sample, convinced that she's superior to pretty much everybody at school and at home. She's a really, really fantastically floridly unlikable kind of character in a way that I just find so charming. She's a terrible hypochondriac. She lies with the most extraordinary audacity and her whole world is just turned upside down when Alison Ashley turns up and is all of the things that she desperately wants to be.