Enid Blyton she's not.

But former model Katie Price has broken through the ranks of top children's authors anyway, receiving the equivalent of an Oscar nomination for her Perfect Ponies: My Pony Care Book.

Not everyone is offering her their heartfelt congratulations, however, with the elite literati pouring scorn on her nomination largely because her book was ghost-written.

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It's so pink and glittery, how could Katie Price's book spark such controversy?

The prestigious W.H. Smith Children's Book of the Year award will be presented at the Galaxy British Book Awards next month.

But the decision to nominate Jordan's book has whipped high-brow authors into a frenzy. The Society of Authors, the Times has reported, has been inundated with complaints - the authors of Girl with a Pearl Earring and of Chocolat among them.

Jordan: Children's author extraordinaire, according to the Galaxy British Book Awards

A ghost-writer is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, or reports which are officially credited to another person.

Celebrities, executives, and political leaders often hire ghost-writers to draft or edit books - usually their autobiographies. The ghost-writer is rarely acknowledged.

Jordan's publishers insist that as Jordan herself is a "brand", it is impossible to say how much of the book she wrote herself, the Times reported.

But that wasn't good enough for Chevalier, or for Joanne Harris, who wrote Chocolat and is now writing for children.

Harris said that it would be "depressing beyond anything" if Jordan wins. "If this is an award for people who write books then it should be open only to people who write books, not to somebody who lends their name to a book, or who would have written a book if they had time but didn't."

Jordan has found a surprising defender in the current Children's Laureate, however.

"We get too hung up about authorship," Michael Rosen said.

"None of us writes a book entirely on our own. We get help from editors, or ideas might come from conversations with our families, or children.

"The issue is whether the book's good, not who has written it. If Jordan or any of her helpers have written a very good book then absolutely good luck to them."

The British Book Awards are intended to reward a combination of success and quality. Previous winners of the children's award include Roald Dahl, Phillip Pullman and Raymond Briggs.

This year's shortlist was decided by children voting in branches of W.H. Smith from a longlist drawn up by publishers, booksellers and past winners.