Ten Years! It's my author anniversary!

Image credit: Rankin 2026

Ten years ago - this week - Beetle Boy crawled into bookshops.

The past decade has been the most creative of my life. I’ve travelled extensively and met the loveliest people, authors, illustrators, editors, PRs, booksellers, teachers, librarians, event planners, as well as readers young and old.

I’ve sold over a millions books in the United Kingdom which I find mind boggling. If you have supported me in any way over the years, whether it be by recommending my books, writing reviews, borrowing them from the library, or buying them in a bookshop, I want to thank you. An author’s life is a precarious one, with no safety net except the kindness of story-lovers. It can play havock with your head and your bank balance. The fact that I am still producing books that people want to read is a marvel to me, and one I hope won’t end, ever. I love what I do.

To mark the 10 year milestone, I took part in Rankin Live and had my portrait taken by one of my favourite photographers. It was a lot of fun.

Image credit: Rankin 2026

Image credit: Rankin 2026

Cover Reveal for Book Four in the Time Keys Series

Ta Da! Check out this stunning cover from Manuel Sumberac for ATTACK OF THE SEA DOGS, a Tudor time travel adventure where our heroes, Sim, Jeopardy and Nelson, climb aboard Sir Francis Drake’s ship Elizabeth Bonaventure and find themselves at war with Spain!

You can find an extract from the fourth Time Keys story at the back of THE IMPOSSIBLE GLADIATOR.

ATTACK OF THE SEA DOGS will be published 17 September 2026.

From 7am on Tuesday 17 Feb until 23.59 Friday 20th February Waterstones are running a special online offer. You can get 25% off RRP if you enter FEB26 at the checkout. The offer is exclusively available on the Waterstones website and the Waterstones app and available to all customers.

2026 is the National Year of Reading

2026 is the National Year of Reading! I love reading. It’s one of my favourite things to do, so I’m proud to be supporting the campaign to GO ALL IN and read a book.

I thought about ways to promote reading and after a few requests from teachers, I’ve made a short video to play at home or in classrooms to encourage young people to pick up a book and read. You can watch it below or in YouTube.

Please share the link and feel free to use it as you see fit.

10th Anniversary Edition of Beetle Boy coming in 2026 with additional material

“Funny, exciting and genuinely eccentric”
— Author PHILIP REEVE

Beetle Boy was first published in 2016. Can you believe that that was ten years ago?

To celebrate Beetle Boy’s tenth anniversary, Chicken House are publishing a special edition of the book with a refreshed cover and featuring new material.

The anniversary edition will be available from June 2026 to coincide with National Insect Week.

It will feature an introduction from me and a never seen before prologue which I was originally asked to cut from the book. The prologue answers the often asked question: how did the beetles came to colonise Mug Mountain.

Cover art and all internal illustrations by artist Julia Sarda

If you haven’t read it, Beetle Boy is wonderfully weird and bursting with brilliant beetles that will charm you into an interest in entomology. You can learn more about the Beetle Trilogy here.

Beetle Boy is an international bestseller, translated into forty languages, and it won the prestigious Branford Boase Award in 2017 for ‘outstanding first novel by a first-time writer of a book for young people’.

The Adventures of Portly the Otter is chosen as one of ten Titles not to miss in March 2026

The Bookseller, Children’s Previews, December 2025

When I opened my copy of the Bookseller today, I discovered that The Adventures of Portly the Otter was being recommended as one of the ten titles not to miss in March 2026 by journalist Charlotte Eyre.

The review is lovely and I’m very grateful as I cannot wait for readers to meet Portly. Every author hopes their stories will find their readers, and reviews like this really help.

Waterstones roundup of Books You Need to Read in 2026

I was further excited to find Portly’s adventures selected by Waterstones in their round-up of books that you NEED to read in 2026. You can read the full list here.

What’s your favourite Roald Dahl book? BBC Radio 5Live interview

Roald Dahl with his dogs

I was delighted to be invited onto Tony LIvesey’s Radio show, on BBC 5LIve, to talk about Roald Dahl with Jenny Worton (Artistic Director of the Roald Dahl Story Company). We discussed the evergreen appeal of Roald Dahl’s stories and his greatest books, as well as celebrating the opening of the new Roald Dahl theatre show, The BFG at the RSC.

LISTEN BELOW

illustration from George’s Marvellous Medicine by Quentin Blake

Cover Reveal for THE ADVENTURES OF PORTLY THE OTTER

Did you love The Wind in the Willows growing up? It was one of my favourite stories, and has become a talisman for me throughout my life. That is why I was delighted to be invited to write a story set on the riverbank. There was only one story I wanted to tell, and that was the story of Portly, Otter’s son, who goes missing in Chapter Seven: Piper at the Gates of Dawn. 🦦

I’ve been working with the wonderful artist Polly Dunbar who has beautifully reimagined E. H. Shepard’s illustrations to bring little Portly and other characters from The Wind in the Willows to life for a new generation. 🌳

 As well as the standard edition, there will be two special limited editions with sprayed edges. The edition with insects on the sprayed edge will only be available through independent bookshops. The edition with the willow tress on the sprayed edge will be exclusively available through Waterstones. If you want to be certain of grabbing one of these beautiful editions, then you’ll need to pre-order as they’ll disappear fast. 🦦

Here are some kind things other authors have said about the book:

"A magical tale of one mischievous otter bursting with charm, wit and wonder" — Hannah Gold, author of The Last Bear

“This magical retelling bubbles with wonder, joy and love.” — Piers Torday, author of The Last Wild

“A glorious future classic” — Alexander Armstrong, author of Evenfall

"Marvellous tales, full of sparkle and charm” — Sophie Anderson, author of The Girl Who Speaks Bear

"One of the loveliest books I've read in a long time” — Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Girl of Ink and Stars

"A story that ripples with the gentleness of childhood wonder and friendship.” — Leah Lane, @mymulberryhouse

The Adventures of Portly the Otter will be out on 26th March 2026 in hardback, but it is available to pre-order now!  So please do!🦦📚

Cover Reveal for Book Three in the Time Keys Series


I am thrilled to reveal the third book in the Time Keys series, The Impossible Gladiator, fantastically illustrated by Manuel Sumberac, coming 12 February 2026. Pre-order your copy now from Waterstones or Bookshop.org

After travelling back to Ancient Egypt. and Viking Times , the Time Keys are journeying to the deadly Roman Colosseum.

THE BLURB: Sim, Jeopardy and Nelson are enjoying an amazing holiday in Rome, until they they are swept up in the mysterious disappearance of world-famous illusionist Kinetic. He vanished during a live broadcast from the Colosseum, but he never reappeared. When Kinetic’s sister finds a strange description in a history book of a gladiator who sounds uncannily like her brother, the friends are determined to help.

HUNT FOR THE GOLDEN SCARAB - A Waterstones Paperbacks of the Year

Hunt for the Golden Scarab is a Waterstones paperback of the year!

This is such fabulous news! I’m delighted and feel lucky to have the first Time Keys book on this list. Waterstones have championed my books ever since Beetle Boy and I’ll forever be eternally grateful.

What does it mean for you? Well, it means that if you haven’t read Hunt for the Golden Scarab, then you can pick it up in Waterstones in person or online for upto 20% off retail price. This is particularly handy if you’re doing a spot of Christmas shopping. Especially because paperback fit very nicely into a stocking!


Harper Collins Authors Party at the V&A

Long gone are the days when the publishing industry was all about long lunches and cocktail parties.

Thank goodness, Harper Collins still throws one star-studded author party every summer. This year, because of my coming book The Adventures of Portly the Otter, I received an invite to join them at the V&A on the hottest day of this year so far.

I had a wonderful time seeing friends and splashing about in the fountain as a children’s author should. Here are some pictures of the fun in which I am being gloriously silly. If you’ve read my books, this won’t surprise you at all.

Podcast from the Riverbank - research and a chat with David Oakes

Last year, when The Adventures of Portly the Otter was top secret, I took a research trip to Cookham Dean - the place that inspired The Wind in the Willows. I visited the original Wild Wood, which is called Bisham Wood and walked along the banks of the Thames.

While I was there, I was visited by actor, podcaster and friend, David Oakes. We recorded an episode of his Trees A Crowd podcast which was published last year, but I had to ask him to cut out all chat of my top secret project because it hadn’t been announced or written yet.

Now that the world knows about my business with the riverbank, David has compiled that conversation into a ten minute bonus listen to charm your ears.

Fun Fact about David, he once played Otter in a stage show of The Wind in the Willows (see pic in gallery).

So come with us to the home of the water rat and listen to a riverside conversation about untold tales from The Wind in the Willows.

Untold Tales from The Wind in the Willows by M. G. Leonard

I’ve been keeping this project secret for a long time now...

It is with a huge amount of delight that I can tell you that I have written a book about Portly the Otter, son of Otter from The Wind in the Willows. It is modelled on Kenneth Grahame’s original, as a series of riverbank stories, and features characters we all know and love, as well as introducing you to some new ones. The book is called The Adventures of Portly the Otter - Untold Tales from The Wind in the Willows and will answer a mystery I wondered about a lot as a child, which is - what really happened to Portly for him to be missing for so long, and end up - discovered by Ratty and Moley,- curled up between the cloven hooves of the god Pan?

The book is illustrated by the fabulous Polly Dunbar and will be printed as a four colour hardback gift book in March 2026 by Farshore.

I cannot tell you what a joy it has been to revisit the riverbank and spend time with the much beloved Ratty, Moley, Badger, and of course the mischievous Mr Toad, but the biggest delight of all has been spending a year researching and learning about otters.

I have inserted the full press release below, if you’re interested in more details.

I am a Podcast Guest on Before the Applause

This week I am a guest on Before the Applause, a podcast made by David Watson. We talk about my life before becoming an author, when I worked in the arts, the digital landscape and how I came to be a part of it, and how that has helped me as a self employed author now.

I have been lucky enough to call David a friend for over fifteen years. We met at the Royal Opera House, where we both worked as part of their digital team. We’ve been friends ever since.

David is Executive Director of Audiences & Media at National Museums Liverpool and has responsibility for Exhibitions, Marketing & Brand, Digital, PR & Communications, Development (Fundraising), Strategic & Creative Partnerships and Creative Studios (design and production) for the group which comprises of seven world-class museums and galleries. Prior to this he has worked for an assortment of high-profile organisations including  Birmingham Royal Ballet, Hull UK City of Culture 2017, English National Ballet, London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Opening & Closing Ceremonies, Royal Opera House and Rambert Dance Company.

THE PODCAST BLURB: Before the Applause Podcast – hosted by David Watson – is your backstage pass to the creative industries. This audio deep dive uncovers the real stories behind the arts and cultural experiences we all enjoy but rarely think about before the curtain rises. Each episode brings you candid conversations with the people who make it happen—dancers, producers, designers, actors, DJs, photographers, costumers, marketers, publicists, data analysts, and many more. From the triumphs to the challenges, David lifts the lid on what it truly means to build a career in this dynamic and ever-evolving industry.  Whether you’re an aspiring creative, a seasoned professional, or just curious about the work behind the magic, Before the Applause is here to celebrate the people who bring ideas to life.

M. G. Leonard at Hay Festival 2025

M G Leonard at Hay Festival 2025

Hay Festival is always such a wonderful experience. Last year I did the schools programme, but this year I was on the public programme and accompanied by 40 mile and hour winds and lots of rain. Hopefully I warmed everyone up by taking them to Egypt in my Hunt for the Golden Scarab event.

I had such a great time talking to young readers about history and music, and was very impressed by how many Egyptologists came all the way to Hay to hang out and get their books signed. I was chatting and signing for well over two hours, and enjoyed every minute of it.

I wanted to thank everyone who made the long journey to come to my event. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.