Dr Katherine Rundell, a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, encourages adults to read children’s books:

“Defy those who would tell you to be serious, those who would limit joy in the name of propriety. Cut shame off at the knees … Plunge yourself soul-forward into a children’s book: see if … they will not un-dig in you something half hidden and half forgotten.”

With a plea as impassioned as that, how could we resist? I’m off to take Paddington Bear down from my bookcase and spend a couple of hours with him.