The marketing machine churns out titles guaranteed to sell, piggybacking on the success of other media, or on the names of celebrities or sports icons who have little to do with the book’s actual creation, but plenty to do with projected revenue. Even more loathsome are the books created for diversity box-ticking purposes.

It’s not the publishers’ fault that Frozen and Bluey are the equivalent of crack cocaine for small children. But this Book Week, rather than talking about what our kids read, we should be asking why they read.

If Bluey books are the gateway drug that leads kids to other books, this is good. Great, in fact. Countless studies show that the health benefits of reading – whatever the subject – are many.

As adults, we read for various reasons. You might be hooked on elaborate detective novels with dark covers and authors with pseudonyms, or prefer psychologically stimulating literature like Liane Moriarty or Sally Hepworth. Maybe you’re a sucker for highbrow literature – the arthouse novel that doesn’t use quotation marks for speech or the Penguin Classics.

In the same way that we have a varied diet in what we eat, we should encourage our children to consume a wide range of literature, too, not just whatever is spewed out of the marketing machine.

Like Guardians of the Galaxy is to a Wes Anderson film, kids’ books also have auteurs: practitioners of style who are passionate about the written form. Think of Graeme Base, Alison Lester, or Jackie French.

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More than just encouraging kids to pick up a book – any book – a beautifully crafted story that’s been purpose-made to be read has the power to inspire kids to fall in love with language and the joys of the imagination. TV shows, by contrast, tell you what to look at, with little room for subtlety or personal interpretation.

But a good children’s book is like a poem; its meaning won’t reveal itself immediately. You can return to it throughout your life, and it will always whisper new messages. This power is why The Giving Tree and The Velveteen Rabbit still evoke such strong responses in people decades on from their original release.

This Book Week, let your kid wear the Spider-Man outfit, but push the boundaries of their reading adventures. I can guarantee you that librarians and local bookshops will be your greatest allies in the mission.

Marketing is a powerful force, but it has nothing on the imaginations of storytellers whose work continues to speak to us through the ages. And even better, these costumes are much less flammable.

Cherie Gilmour is a freelance writer.

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