11 July 2013

Newly independent, we remain the same – a small story house based in Oxford. We choose the very best stories or narratives we can find for people to read. It's a great job. We don't choose very many, sometimes as few as just one book a month, sometimes a novel, sometimes a picture book, sometimes poetry.

We are not so much interested in how many pages a book has, as to how much space the storyteller needs to tell the story properly. And we choose our storytellers and writers very carefully indeed. We don’t think we do a whole lot, but making that choice is the most important thing we do.

Our proudest boast has always been that our books 'work'. That doesn't sound like a big claim, I suppose, but it is. By 'work' I mean that we reckon that if you pick up and read a DFB book or if you give it to a child then the chances are that you or they or both are going to be taken by it in some way, taken to tears or to laughter or to a world that you won’t want to leave. A DFB book will move you.

Of course you won't like everything we do. Not all our geese are swans. But I reckon the chances are that you will.