Well, now here’s a laureate who doesn’t hesitate to speak his mind. Harry Potter’s no good for children because the books are a unique combination of complicated and boring.

Michael Rosen, 62, the poet and author of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, succeeded Jacqueline Wilson as the fifth children’s laureate in June. A £10,000 bursary goes with the post, which involves promoting reading and writing for children.

Despite their popularity, however, it seems that Rosen is not a fan of the boy wizard books that have earned Rowling an estimated £560 million and spurred young readers into queueing up for copies.

“They don’t grab me personally,” he said. The narratives are complex and most young children would struggle to cope with their challenging and often sinister themes. He would not choose to read them to his own children, he said, because he did not want to bore them.

I suppose it depends on where your kids are when you haul these needlessly fat tomes out. My five year old would probably be bored by them, but not because they’re too complicated. Once you’ve read books like the Moomins series and the adventures of Mr Bliss with his bizarre glowing bears, Potter’s wand and broom and mysterious dark bad guy seem a little simplistic. In some ways, I wonder whether his expectations haven’t been completely shattered enough by the Disneyfication of life for him to find Potter “imaginative”.