Yet anyone who's taken the time to read some contemporary children's literature will know how brilliant the best of it is. "A loved children's book sears into you," Francesca Simon told me recently. "It becomes part of who you are, what you love, what you care about, in a way no adult book could ever emulate."

That's certainly my experience. I will never forget reading Watership Down at the age of 8: it changed my life. But it was only on re-reading it as an adult that I realised its depth; its allusions to world mythology, Greek tragedy and Shakespeare; its political and philosophical dimensions. It's a multi-layered work of astonishing scope and ambition – yet at 8, I could enjoy it as a thrilling, page-turning adventure.