But he wanted to be a writer, not an academic, and was soon working for Phil Redmond's new Liverpool-based TV soap Brookside ("it wasn't difficult", he says, "they were taking anyone with a Liverpool postcode, the hard thing was to be kept on"). More TV commissions followed, and work as a critic for Living Marxism magazine, then a stint on Coronation Street and the meeting with Michael Winterbottom at Thames TV that led to Cottrell Boyce's first screenwriting credit, in 1995, for serial killer road movie Butterfly Kiss. Mrs Spendlove was still there, incredibly, and she recognised me right away. Thirty-four years she’s taught there. Imagine that. I don't think films ever change people the way books change people. But I know what you mean. I do see now doing things with the Reader Organisation that anyone can be saved, it's never too late. But there is something very porous about the years between eight and twelve. That's the debt I want to pay off, because it's the books I read then that really stayed with me." Cottrell Boyce was born in 1959 into a Roman Catholic Liverpool family and remembers an idyllic childhood. The church loomed large, a physical as well as spiritual presence, and he was one of those to whom its rituals and miracles made perfect sense. When he appeared on Desert Island Discs one of his choices was Oliver Postgate reading Noggin the Nog. Another was a 60s recording of Irish children recounting Bible stories, their voices full of wonder and conviction. In this world of expanding opportunity it felt natural enough that he, first in his family to make it to university, should go from his Catholic grammar school to read English at Keble College, Oxford.

I thought it was funny," Cottrell Boyce says when I tell him it is a sad book. "You know when they're talking about football and it says 'he was still quite horsey in his thinking', being Mongolian?" It's true the book has some nice jokes, and the deportation does not end in disaster. The Guardian judges admired its humour as well as its originality. But Cottrell Boyce has a tear in his eye when he talks about Misheel, the real girl on whom the story is based, and the pride the local children took in her. In the past Cottrell Boyce has said that compared with the impact of books on susceptible young minds, culture for adults – films, books, whatever – is basically a "pastime". Did the Olympics opening ceremony change his mind, or does he think its content didn't much matter – or matter enough to change anything? This is a book that really made me think because Chengis, Nergui and their mother are afraid all the time. Chengis took great responsibility for looking after his brother. It was especially interesting for me because my Uncle's wife is Mongolian. I have found out that it is an absolutely enormous country and once it had the biggest Empire that the world has ever known. The characters are very real and the story made me glad that I live in a country where the thing that I am most frightened of is the possibility of a big hairy legged spider that might be lurking under my bed. I was so pleased that the book had a happy ending.

From the best-selling author of Cosmic and Millions comes an evocative immigration tale about two brothers trying to survive- a daring story that miraculously defies belief. Cottrell Boyce once named education secretary Michael Gove on a list of "dislikes", but generally prefers to keep Westminster at a distance. "Politics itself is so depleted, isn't it? To me it's all about seeing things I can do something about, like the Liverpool reading thing. I kind of wish I hadn't said that about Gove because I can't imagine the Labour guy is going to be that different. It's as much a New Labour thing, the measurement and statistics. If I've got a political axe to grind then it's around literacy. I think we've tragically conflated literacy and reading and that there is a whole generation now that doesn't read for pleasure. In Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the flying car with a mind of its own, he was presented with a readymade vehicle with which to attempt all these things. Compared with the highly personal ideas and experiences that lay behind previous books, the continuation of the Fleming brand looks baldly commercial. But there is charm and humour in Cottrell Boyce's two sequels (the original was published in three instalments: the plan is to copy this formula and call it a day). This is partly drawn from his pleasure in the fact that the original is that rare thing, an adventure story in which the parents are invited along.

I wanted to talk to the new boy. I wanted to talk about eagles. But Mimi seemed to regard the whole Chingis incident as a minor interruption in the ongoing global cosmetics conversation. Only the boys were interested. At lunchtime, dozens of them crowded round Chingis and Nergui, asking them if they really had eagles, and how big they were, and whether he was a liar or not. His second book, Framed, took another ordinary boy in an ordinary setting – this time a small town in Wales – and used the wartime evacuation of the National Gallery's greatest treasures to provide the glimpses of transcendence that, in Cottrell Boyce's stories, are the counterpoint to Ealing comedy-style villainy. In Cosmic, the book he says was the most fun to write (now in development as a film), he took a 12-year-old so tall he can pretend to be his dad, and sent him into space. He has also created a fantastic trilogy, writtenwith his trademark wit, warmth and sense of story, based upon Ian Fleming's novel, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, comprising Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Over the Moon. A Liverpool supporter, he has strong views about the findings of last month's Hillsborough report, although he has turned down requests to write about it out of deference to those writers who were there. "It's a defining event for Liverpool, in the same way that Bloody Sunday is a defining event for Derry," he says, adding that the conspiracy to blame the fans was "like John Webster, it's something from T he Duchess of Malfi". At times he seems startled by his own vehemence. "I'm really ranting here, aren't I?" he says at one point. Although he probably wouldn't say so, Cottrell Boyce is a writer with a clear moral purpose, who believes the whole point of books is to extend our imaginative reach, and give us pleasure in the process. Recently he has been reading stories by George Saunders, recommended by his adult sons, and the children's books of Rumer Godden with his youngest. "I'm on this mission to read all the books I've given people the impression that I've read or fooled myself into thinking that I have read, all the stuff I've bullshitted about, that's my mission."With his brilliant depiction of two brothers from Mongolia trying to adapt to school in Liverpool while haunted by a fear from home, Frank Cottrell Boyce never preachers to the reader, and judges felt that he writes with such credibility and warmth that his readers will be left wiser when they have finished the story." Hello Yellow - 80 Books to Help Children Nurture Good Mental Health and Support With Anxiety and Wellbeing - LoveReading4Kids exists because books change lives, and buying books through LoveReading4Kids means you get to change the lives of future generations, with 25% of the cover price donated to schools in need. Join our community to get personalised book suggestions, extracts straight to your inbox, 10% off RRPs, and to change children’s lives. The Unforgotten Coat is an enchanting story about learning new lessons, experiencing new cultures, and re-discovering lost friends and memories. Being shortlisted for the Guardian Prize gives you a particularly warm glow because it is awarded by a panel of your fellow authors. Past winners include my childhood heroes - Alan Garner, Leon Garfield, Joan Aiken - and contemporary heroes like Mark Haddon, Geraldine McCaughrean and Meg Rosoff.”