About me

Hi, I’m Sam, and welcome to Childtastic Books!

I work part time as a librarian at St Michael’s Primary School in Oxford and this blog now acts as the school’s main library blog (it was too difficult writing two separate ones!).

Childtastic originally started as a collaboration between me and my daughter, Holly, as a way of reviewing children’s books from a parent’s and child’s perspective. We’d always give an honest opinion and would often disagree with each other – tactfully, of course!

Now that Holly is a teenager, she’s off doing other things but I have kept the blog running because I love children’s literature – so much so that I gained an MA in it from the University of Roehampton. (I graduated in February 2016 and my degree was conferred upon me by Dame Jacqueline Wilson – how cool, and appropriate – is that?!) I have also written a young adult novel and was shortlisted for the 2017 National Trust’s new fairy tales competition. I’ve been a judge for Chris Evans’ 500 Words competition and for the Revolting Rhymes poetry competition run by the Roald Dahl Foundation.

As well as all this, I am an experienced editor and writer and have worked with a wide range of clients, including the National Literacy Trust. I also write teachers’ resources for Scholastic and work in an editorial capacity with authors on their novels. Basically, I love words!

Please do comment on the posts – it’s great to know my readers!

I hope you enjoy the site!