Do you remember the first time you fell in love with a book? The stories we read as children extend far beyond our childhoods; they are a window into our deepest hopes, joys and anxieties. They reveal our past – collective and individual, remembered and imagined – and invite us to dream up different futures. In a pioneering history of children's literature, from the ancient world to the present day, Sam Leith reveals the magic of our most cherished stories, and the ways in which they have shaped and consoled entire generations. Excavating the complex lives of beloved writers, Leith offers a humane portrait of a genre – one acutely sensitive to its authors' distinct contexts.

A hurricane sweeps off the Gulf of Mexico and in, the back-country of Alabama, assembles a passenger jet out of old bean-cans and junkyard waste. An eccentric mathematician – last heard of investigating the physics of free will and ranting about the devil – vanishes in the French Pyrenees. And the thuggish operatives of a multinational arms conglomerate are closing in on Alex Smart – a harmless Cambridge postgraduate who has set off with hope in his heart and a ring in his pocket to ask his American girlfriend to marry him. At the Directorate of the Extremely Improbable – an organisation so secret that many of its operatives aren't 100 per cent sure it exists – Red Queen takes an interest. What ensues is a chaotic chase across an imaginary America, haunted by madness, murder, mistaken identity, and a very large number of unhealthy but delicious snacks. The Coincidence Engine exists. And it has started to work. "The Coincidence Engine" is consistently engaging – one of the most enjoyable, entertaining debut novels you'll come across for ages.