Homework for our home study course always includes a reading list and the focus is on books published within the last ten years. This isn’t because I feel that there were no good books published before the year 2000. Of course there were. Thousands of them, going back hundreds of years, not just ten. The point is, though, as new writers in a new millennium we have to be concentrating on creating new and different material for a new and different age.

Jacqueline Wilson has just been named the most popular library book author of the decade with her best known book The Story of Tracy Beaker being named the most borrowed individual title. Three Harry Potter titles took second, third and fourth place, and of the top ten most lent authors no less than five children’s authors featured – Jacqueline Wilson, Mick Inkpen, Roald Dahl and Janet & Allan Ahlberg.

Renowned children’s editor, Rosemary Stones (my ex-boss and editor of Books for Keeps magazine which, incidentally, is definitely worth subscribing to), writing in Books for Keeps, names her own highlights of the past decade and on the whole I feel she’s made pretty good choices.

Stand alone titles for older children included The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-time, Millions and How I Live Now.

Series titles included Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials, Harry Potter (of course), Twilight, Artemis Fowl, the Alex Rider books (Stormbreaker etc.), Horrid Henry, How to Train your Dragon (and other titles featuring Hiccup Horrendus Haddock 111), Mr Gum and Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines quartet .

Picture book titles included Traction Man is Here, Wolves, Lost and Found, Clarice Bean That’s Me and The Gruffalo’s Child.

But what about my own personal favourites. I’d second Rosemary’s choice of How I Live Now and the Mortal Engines books. I also loved (oh, how to choose?) The Knife That Killed Me and Private Peaceful. For younger readers I’m a big fan of David Almond and loved My Dad’s a Birdman.

One of my biggest moans, as a champion of new children’s writers, is that during the last decade publisher’s budgets have generally been taken up publishing and promoting a few favoured authors at the expense of the many. But perhaps it’s not necessarily the publishers that are at fault. Perhaps the fault lies with the writing community, with not enough of us pushing boundaries and coming up with new, innovative and exciting material.

Do share your own favourite titles of the past decade and, also, your ideas as to where children’s publishing should be going in this new decade.