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What's 'children's literature'?

David Almond is a celebrated British writer of young readers' fiction .and he's just won the Guardian Children's Book Prize for his novel A Song for Ella Grey, a modern retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, two star crossed lovers. The novelist Lynne Reid Banks - herself a children's author has criticised the award because, as she puts it, "in the first five pages there is lesbian love, swearing, drinking, and enough other indications that this is not a book for children." David Almond responds

(Photo: Children reading books. Credit: Thinkstock)

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4 minutes