• ‘Maths is like broccoli,” says Kjartan Poskitt Some people like it. Some people hate it. But you have to have a bit because it’s good for you.”

Poskitt is the author of the long-running Murderous Maths series, published by Scholastic, which brings the humour of Horrible Histories to number-crunching.

He will present some of his favourite mathematical magic next month at Jewish Book Week 2019.

“I’ve always liked puzzles and tricks,” he says. “I am 62 and have the ultimate teenage boy’s bedroom —four guitars and a banjo, six music keyboards; I can make the room any colour I like at the flick of a switch and I own 15 packs of cards but only one is normal; the others are all trick decks.”

Yorkshireman Poskitt has an engineering degree but at university spent a fair time “on stage, being funny” and went on to become the warm-up man for BBC1’s Swap Shop television show.

His favourite number fact is that 12,988,816 is the number of different ways you can put 32 dominoes on a chess board.

“I love the fact somebody worked it out,” he says, “it makes me laugh.”

He has around 50 routines, so you never know what you might learn at his Book Week talk. Perhaps he will introduce you to flexagons, or infinitely big ice-creams.

Poskitt solemnly confesses he is always making infinitely big holes in things — “there are infinitely big holes swamping York at the moment”.

Kjartan Poskitt will be speaking at Jewish Book Week on March 3

• On March 10 at Jewish Book Week, Horrid Henry creator Francesca Simon and composer Gavin Higgins will talk about transforming Simon’s YA novel, The Monstrous Child, for the Royal Opera House. Not especially an opera fan, Simon drew on her experience of writing picture books — “leaving space for something to be told through the illustrations”. 

The “child” is Hel, stroppy teenager and Norse goddess of the underworld. 

“For the opera, I changed some things because the book is a first-person monologue,” she says. “Hel has a modern teenage voice but also a mythical one,” and the challenge was to preserve her distinctive tones. 

The opera opens on February 21. “It has been the most enormous fun,” says Simon. “In a way, I forget that I wrote it — it’s a thrilling process to see things come off the page on to the stage.” 

JBW director Claudia Rubenstein says: “We’re delighted to be hosting two such incredible children’s and YA authors, enabling families to experience the festival together”. 

Tickets for both talks can be obtained at kingsplace.co.uk/jbw or call 020 7520 1490. Angela Kiverstein is the JC’s children’s books editor