This month, our (belated - sorry!) show is all about MONEY. It's a bit of a different one. Our chapter book is non-fiction, and it's called Cash: How to earn it, save it, spend it, grow it, give it, by Rashmi Sirdeshpande. This book was chosen by our very special guest, the wonderful author Lisette Auton. The theme took us on a more freewheeling discussion than usual, about our own educations around money growing up, things we saved our pocket money for, and what Lisette did to make a little extra with her cassette player as a kid! We also had a chat about creative method and writing, and learning how to learn.

You can find Lisette's website here and make sure to check out our episode about her debut, The Secret of Haven Point.

Lisette also recommends #WriteMentor, who she does some mentoring for.

Our picture book is Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts and Noah Z Jones. This story is a perfect encapsulation of some of the themes covered in the chapter book. It's about wanting something very very much, not being able to afford it, coping with the feelings that arise and finding solidarity for others. It's a really, really great story about Jeremy, who wants Those Shoes he sees advertised on every billboard. The art by Noah Z Jones is stunning.

Reminder that we will be taking a break for a few months! In the meantime, Nina's other podcast, the Podgoblin's Hat, has a whole season out ready for your listening pleasure.

What A Wonderful Day is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com

This month we're reading Knock Three Times, by Cressida Cowell, and Wishes, by Muon Thi Van and Victo Ngai.

Knock Three Times is the third book of a four part series, but anytime is a good time to jump on board thanks to Cressida Cowell's chatty and unnamed narrator. We praise David Tennant's performance of the audiobook very highly, but you'll want the paper book too, so you can look at the pictures. It's a silly adventure story, it's also surprisingly poignant about the difficult relationship between children and their parents.

Wishes is a fabulously sparse illustrated poem about migration. Inspired by the author's own experience as a little girl in the 1980s, it's also a much broader, more universal story. We both just loved this one. The illustrations are stunning. No notes.

The play Matt mentions is The Beekeeper of Aleppo.

And we talked more about Pook's Hill, or the Learning Place for Spectacularly Gifted Wizards, on our schools special back in September. And if you want to hear more audiobook chat, we recommended specific books and narrators at the end of series 5.

What A Wonderful Day is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com

It's finally here, it's our Greek myth episode! We kick it all off with Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, a titan of early 2000s kids' fantasy that we were a smidge too old for at the time that it came out. We referred to it too when we did our School Stories special if you want to hear more about that kind of stuff. We also compare it to City of the Plague God by Sarwat Chadda which we talked about on an episode of Fantasy Book Swap with Ali Baker.

Then, we get to read a few poems from Echo Echo by Marilyn Singer and Josee Masse and hear Matt do the speediest backpedalling to date on the podcast!

What A Wonderful Day is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com