Less…

• Strong Female Characters Who Are Strong In One Way Only.
• Strong Female Characters Who Are Violent And Thus Strong And That Is About All You Get.
• “I read Harry Potter once…”
• Looking into the mirror scenes.
• Lists from headteachers of Approved Literature saying that they read Boccaccio when they were two days old, and why haven’t you?
• I Write For Print Media And Bloggers Are Killing Critique.
• Sexual agency being used as a negative character trait (tbf, this applies to pretty much all the media I consume).
• Woe, The Children Are Not Reading articles.
• Woe, The Children Are Not Reading What I want Them To Read articles.
• Critical comment being legitimised from those who do not engage with what they critique.
• The male gaze.

More…

• Thicker paper quality.
• Exploitation of endpapers.
• Festivals paying authors.
• Authors, in general, getting paid a realistic wage.
• Regionally influenced content.
• Illuminated first letters in chapters (my god how I love this).
• Diversity, particularly with focus towards race, sexuality and social class.
• Recognition of what is done well, when it’s done well.
• Debut books.
• Risk.
• Poetry.
• Public library advocacy.
• Big, ambitious, world-shaking stories.
• Alternative family structures.
• Connection between the academic world of children’s lit, and mainstream publishing.
• Unconventional heroes.
• Pony stories.
• Disruption of the canon.