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Normal People sucked all the air out of the room when it came out in the US in April, building on the success of Rooney’s much-buzzed-about 2017 debut, Conversations With Friends. “I can’t put it down,” said the woman next to me. As is usually the case at such events, everyone was talking about one particular book, the hot book of the moment, the one no one could stop thinking about - but for once, at this lunch full of people who have devoted their careers to making books for children, the title everyone was talking about wasn’t a children’s book. Earlier this summer, I attended a lunch for people who work with children’s books.
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