The Ice Children Shortlisted for Sheffield Children's Book Award 2024

The Ice Children has made it onto the shortlist for the Sheffield Children’s Book Award Shortlist 2024. This is such a wonderful award, run by the Schools Library service in Sheffield. I’m delighted that t The Ice Children, my frosty magical homage to winter, has been shortlisted in the Shorter Novels for 9-11 year olds category with two other fantastic books. I cannot wait to go to the Crucible Theatre for the award ceremony. Keep your fingers crossed for me and Penny Neville Lee the illustrator.

If you want to find out more about the award, follow this link.

BBC Authors Live - M. G. Leonard - Thursday 9 May 2024

I will be bringing my love of birds, storytelling, reading and detective mysteries to BBC Scotland, in partnership with the Scottish Book Trust, for Authors Live!

If you are a teacher or home educator in Scotland, you can watch the live stream in your classrooms when it’s first broadcast. And if you are outside of Scotland, the program will be available on the iPlayer to all of the UK for at least a year. It will be available to everyone to watch.

Authors Live is a series of world class children’s author and illustrator events brought directly to your classroom, library or home for free, live on the web. There are live events available to watch on demand from authors, including Cressida Cowell, Joseph Coelho and Mark Bradley. MORE HERE

M. G. Leonard on Sky News talking about the importance of World Book Day.

It was a delight to be invited to Sky News to talk about the great work World Book Day does to promote reading for pleasure, along with fellow author Will Mabbet.

Right now, growing numbers of children don’t own even one book, and literacy levels are sinking among those struggling in a cost of living crisis. Schools have had budgets slashed to the bone and cannot afford a library, let alone a librarian, and councils are closing public libraries. Is it any wonder that fewer than three in ten children are reading daily?

Reading is the single most beneficial and life-altering skill a person can learn. It certainly changed my life and I’m grateful for it.

A special thanks goes out to Sketchley Hill school who gave me permission to use photographs from my visit on World Book Day this year. I had a great time plotting crimes with their pupils, reading to them, and sharing the joy of reading.

Come with me to The Island of Brilliant!

There’s a brilliant island, far far away, where the wonderful author illustrator Nadia Shireen lies in a hammock reading books and chatting about them with her cast away friend Frank Cottrell Boyce. This week I jumped on an underground steam train and paid them a visit. I brought a hamper of treats and as we ate them we talked about writing stories, our new favourite reads, and how hard it is to do magic tricks. I would have loved to stay longer, but I had to steam away to get ready for World Book Day,

World Book Day 2024

Every year, it is a huge joy to see your wonderful costumes on World Book Day.

I like to celebrate readers’ awesomeness by gathering the images I’m sent online into a gallery so that you know that I’ve seen your costumes and how wonderful they are! This year the costumes were off the chart levels of amazing. I’m truly blown away.

I hope you all had a wonderful World Book Day!

If you dressed up as a character from one of my books this year, I would like to thank you, because I am honoured that you have enjoyed my stories enough to make this effort to create a costume, and it makes me so happy to see them.

If you want to send me a picture to add to the gallery, you can post it on a social media platform and @ me in or email it to info@mgleonard.com

The Ice Children audiobook is nominated for an AUDIE in America

The Ice Children has been shortlisted for an Audie Award in America!

The Audie Awards are American awards given out by the Audio Publishers Association for achievements in excellence (performance and production). You can learn more here.

I am over the moon that The Ice Children has been nominated in the UK-produced books category. It’s a wild list of finalists. The books are all so different. I have no idea how they choose a winner. Considering the competition I have realistic expectations about not winning, but it’s a wonder to me that The Ice Children is a part of the mix. I’m so pleased because I love what Audible has done with the story. The music, the acting, and the production are all so creative and, I believe, first-class.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Wicked Writers: Be the Change writing competition

Today, the Wicked Writers: Be the Change writing competition launches. It was devised by the National Literacy Trust and stage musical Wicked (as part of its acclaimed Wicked Active Learning cultural and social education programme), to inspire the UK’s school children to get creative and use their voices to change the world for the better.

Now in its second year, the competition is based on the themes of one of the most well-known songs from the musical, ‘For Good’, and this year challenges pupils aged 9 – 14 to write persuasively about a positive environmental change they want to see.

This year, I’m delighted to announce that I’m joining the judging panel.

To find out how to take part and all the information about the wicked prizes, click the button!

The Twitchers Museum Adventure!

This February half-term, investigate the wonderful wildlife at your local museum as part of The Twitchers Museum Adventure, organised by Kids in Museums and Walker Books.

The egg-citing national trail for families celebrates the release of Feather, the latest book in the Twitchers Series. I’m super excited about this because Feather is a museum heist!

Over 55 museums across the UK will be taking part from 10 to 25 February 2024. Join birdwatching detectives the Twitchers and explore the beautiful birds and amazing animals in your local museum. Pick up a free activity sheet to join in and have a hoot with your family. Find all the feathered friends hidden in the collection and make your own pledge to protect wildlife. Complete the trail and get a free Twitchers sticker!

My Beetles crawled into the Observer!

Just before Christmas I was approached by the Observer newspaper, who were putting together their annual Christmas puzzle pull out and planning a quiz where the reader had to match the pet to the author. They wanted to know if I’d be happy to take part.

I was delighted that my six-legged lovelies would get to star in a newspaper article and invited the Observer into my writing cabin at the bottom of my garden to photograph my beautiful pets.

I’ve put together a gallery of the photoshoot, and you’ll see we tried a number of set-ups. Unfortunately, the beetles got excited by the bright lights and all the attention and kept flying about. Sophie, the photographer, ended up with a beetle in her hair at one point, but she was an excellent sport about it.

Adventures on Trains to become a film franchise!

It is with huge excitement that I can finally share this fabulous news with you. There’s an Adventures on Trains film franchise coming down the tracks, starting with The Highland Falcon Thief!

There’s lots going on behind the scenes that we aren’t able to talk about yet, but Sam and I are stoked that Kindle Entertainment will be reimagining our books for the big screen. Their vision for the screen adaptation of The Highland Falcon Thief is sure to please readers and fans of the series. The talent, passion, and ability of the team they’re putting together is beyond exciting.

You can read the full press release below.

There will be more news coming next year, but for now, all we can say is that it is happening and it’s going to be quite a ride!

M. G. Leonard to appear on BBC's The Big Scottish Book Club this Christmas

M. G. Leonard, Graham McTavish, Damian Barr and Jenny Coglan

I am so excited to be appearing on the BBC's Big Scottish Book Club next week, on the 13th December, with the fabulous Jenny Colgan and Graham McTavish, hosted by the one and only Damian Barr.

I would just like to point out that we children’s authors rarely get the opportunity to appear on ‘grown up’ literature programming as people seem to think it is easier to write a children’s book than a story for adults. For the record, it isn’t. It’s much harder. This is why I was so pleased to have this opportunity to talk with the ever-impressive Damian Barr about my wintery book.

This show is so much fun. Get into the mood for Christmas as we chat about magical Christmas bookshops, Raymond Briggs, Outlander, Clanlands in New Zealand and The Ice Children. I even do my Pordis impersonation.

If you love books and men in kilts then top up your mulled wine and join us!


M. G. Leonard contributes story to climate anthology

I’ve always wanted to work with the illustrator David Litchfield because I love of his style of art, in particular the way he treats light. Look at that beautiful cover! I’m delighted to be a part of this story anthology. The book is published in March 2024. The blurb is below. As you may be able to guess, my story involves eating insects.

In this collection of compelling short stories, authors including M. G. Leonard, Neal Shusterman and Tolá Okogwu offer hope for our planet in the face of climate change.

Skyscraper farms. Insects for dinner. Guerilla gardening. Nine authors pose ingenious and thought-provoking solutions to the climate crisis in this anthology of climate fiction. Rooted in real-world science and technology, the stories offer a roadmap for a future where our planet can thrive. From a rewilding project with unexpected consequences to a rebellion against augmented reality, these wide-ranging stories will leave the reader feeling a little less powerless in the fight to save planet Earth.

Full list of contributors: Eli Brown, L. R. Lam, M. G. Leonard, Rebecca Lim, Oisín McGann, Tolá Okogwu, Neal and Brendan Shusterman, Louie Stowell and Bijal Vachharajani

Festive Prize Draw with Waterstones

My publisher is running a festive prize draw with Waterstones.

Order your special signed edition with unique endpapers and snowflake sprayed edges of The Ice Children before 23:59 on Wednesday 1 November to be in with the chance of winning:

  • A family day out for 2 adults and 2 children to an ice skating rink of your choice.

  • A festive dinner at your choice of restaurant.

  • A travel allowance of up to £150 is included.