There can be something quite exciting about being ill. I don't mean really ill, of course; more what my grandmother used to call “poorly”. There is the initial tickle at the back of the throat; the mysterious leg pains; the slight headache. By the time you wake up with a full-blown stinker, there is almost a pleasing inevitability about the whole process. You will have to stay in bed; people will make understanding noises; friends and relatives will sweetly pick up the kids from school; work will have to do without your vital presence for a couple of days. There will be soothing powders, daytime TV, duvets and hot-water bottles. You may feel dreadful but at least you're the centre of attention.

After a couple of days, however, the novelty starts to wear off. Feeling lousy loses its appeal. The taste of Lemsip makes you shudder, Cash in the Attic is driving you potty and you long for some fresh air. The prospect of returning to work seems positively exciting. Besides, it's not just you any more: other people are feeling ill, too. Worse, they have more serious symptoms, that make your piffling chesty cough seem pathetic amateurish. There is a certain competitiveness in the air: one has pleurisy, another spent a night on a drip. Before you know it, all conversations seem to revolve around the relative benefits of echinacea and Nurofen, and whether antibiotics are appropriate for certain types of earache. It's boring. Really boring.

In that way it is a lot like the financial crisis. At first it was a fascinating, frightening phenomenon. No amount of commentary was enough, no economic theory too complex. I spent more time with Robert Peston than with my children, hanging on his every hyperbole. I surfed the net, absorbing every last spit and toss of the unfolding debacle. I, too, became convinced that The World As We Know It Was Coming To An End, and started stockpiling tinned tomatoes.

And then, after the Americans first rejected that $700 squillion bail-out and the markets mysteriously rallied, a worrying thought crept into my head. What if the patient wasn't on the verge of expiring after all? What if there was a certain amount of drama-queenery going on?

I'm not saying that capitalism isn't sick. But what if its malaise calls less for a dramatic ambulance ride and more for swallowing a few pills, gritting the teeth and pressing on through? Could it be, I wondered, that the international money markets had nothing more than a touch of that all-too familiar affliction: man flu?

As every woman knows, man flu comes on suddenly. In women it manifests itself as a common cold; in men the same virus is transformed into a potentially life-threatening illness. No one knows how or when this mutation takes place, but keen observers of the disease have noted that it often follows a period of excess. Thus a fellow can go to bed perfectly hale and hearty, if a little over-refreshed, and awaken slumped on death's doorstep. This deterioration, you understand, has nothing to do with overindulgence; it is the result of unavoidable environmental factors (the man who sneezed on the train; or Sheryl from accounts being off with suspected TB). Those five glasses of red wine and a double brandy were (you faithless woman) entirely incidental. This banging headache, sore throat and sickly feeling in the stomach is not, any of it, the poor gentleman's fault.

What to do? Well, as far as the patient is concerned, the correct prescription is unfettered sympathy, saintly understanding and a lot of soothing broth. All resources, emotional and financial, must be diverted to deal with the emergency. Children must be silent; outings cancelled; potions purchased and medical persons summoned. With the right care, the patient will rally enough to manage a little something solid, perhaps even a medicinal glass of Guinness. Eventually, if all correct procedures are followed, he will be on the mend. One day he may even be his usual lovely self again.

There is, of course, an alternative. You can just ignore it. You can close your ears to the bleating, turn a blind eye to the shuffling figure in pyjamas with its hand on the TV remote control, ignore the groans and sighs from the sofa.

Instead of rushing to administer soothing cold compresses and hot Ribena, you can indicate the whereabouts of the medicine cabinet and get on with your life. Go to work; take the kids to football; generally act in a normal fashion, and not as though the sky were falling. It won't go down well, but you'd be surprised how quickly it brings about a recovery.

Talking of risks, on Monday morning I will take the biggest gamble of my career: talking to a class of eight-year-olds. Monday is the start of Booktrust's annual children's book week (see www.booktrust.org.uk for details) and, in an effort to do my bit, I shall be speaking to several groups of schoolchildren about the process of co-writing The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls.

Except for the time I was asked to go on Richard & Judy, I have rarely felt more nervous. Children have a habit of asking very direct questions which I am ill-equipped to answer. My main fear is that they will ask me, in their serious, big-eyed way, how I got into writing.

There are two possible responses to that: 1) I worked hard at school and focused on achieving my goals; and 2) I met a fellow in a pub off Fleet Street who offered me a few sub-editing shifts. No prizes for guessing which one is true.

Still, I would have made even less of my life had my parents not read to me every day while I was growing up. Gollum, Prince Caspian, Moonface, the Jabberwocky, the Cat in the Hat and Mrs Doasyouwoudbedoneby are just some of the characters that remain vividly entrenched in my memory. The variety and wonder of those fantasy worlds that they inhabited, with their secret, sometimes subversive messages, fed my curiosity and imagination. More importantly, they taught me what only books can: to question authority, make up your own mind and not fear accepted wisdom.

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