When your average 7���12-year-old is faced with a wall of books, say at school or in a bookshop, their default choice will probably be David Walliams, Andy Griffiths, or Jeff Kinney. (Are you nodding?) It���s not difficult to work out why. Bright, cartoony covers; fun internal illustrations; font styles and sizes to welcome the reader in, and stories that are easy to read, that bowl along at a cracking pace. Above all, they are fun.

But are they ���good��� for your child? Are they worthy?

Yes! Dismiss fun reads at your peril. If you have children this age, you���ll be aware they���re constantly being assessed on their reading ability, so it���s all too easy for them to associate reading with hard work, stress, homework, maybe even failure. If that���s your experience of reading, why on earth would you choose it as something to do in your spare time, when there are so many alternative forms of entertainment?

Parent: ���You���ve been on that thing for ages. Why don���t you read a book?���
Child [switching off device]: ���Okay, great idea!���

No, me neither.