By Camryn Vodden, Emma Rogers and Ekta Rajagopalan
A reputable and distinguished award, the Waterstones Children’s Laureate has been newly awarded to Frank Cottrell-Boyce, an author highly regarded for his children's fiction books, from Millions, published in 2004, to The Runaway Robot, published in 2018. Succeeding the previous laureate, Joseph Coelho, Cottrell-Boyce will hold this title until 2026.
Celebrating reading, creativity and storytelling, the Children’s Laureate advocates for every child to be able to access books throughout their life and experience a life through diverse and meaningful stories. Originally starting in 1999, those appointed the Laureate run a two-year course where they decide on a particular stance in children’s literature to explore and improve upon, typically engaging with children in schools and libraries across the UK.
Quentin Blake was the very first laureate whose key focus was promoting illustration and created the House of Illustration, the world’s first centre dedicated to the art of illustration. Jacqueline Wilson took the title from 2005–2007 with a focus on encouraging families to read aloud together. The most recent Laureate, Joseph Coelho, embarked on agendas including Poetry Prompts, Bookmaker Like You and the Library Marathon.
Award-winning author Frank Cottrell-Boyce took over the role from Coelho in July of this year. Cottrell-Boyce is known for his middle-aged children’s books that combine comedy with touching narratives. He is also renowned for his screenplays and collaborated frequently with Michael Winterbottom on these projects. In 2012, he wrote the Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony, based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, as well as the brochure, stadium announcements and media guide.
In his first speech as the new Waterstones Children’s Laureate, Cottrell-Boyce spoke about the inequalities in Britain today, citing the country's 4.3 million children growing up in poverty. He added that this poverty created a barrier to books and suggested regular readers are more likely to overcome disadvantages. Cottrell-Boyce’s overall goal as Children’s Laureate is to speak to the Prime Minister directly about the issues that prevent young people from reading.
One of Cottrell-Boyce’s first tasks as Children’s Laureate will be as part of a team hosting a summit called Reading Rights: Books Build a Brighter Future. Experts will be invited to discuss improving children’s access to literature. He references that 95% of parents with children under seven know how crucial reading is, but only one in five read with their children. “It’s just so bad. We’ve got to close that gap. There’s nothing disputable about it – and I think it’s really achievable. It’s not building a bridge to Ireland or a floating airport. It’s not some crazy, incredibly expensive dream.” He understands the anxieties children nowadays face, whether it be the planet’s environment or dealing with post-lockdown experiences, and believes that anxieties can be alleviated through reading. Even though he writes books for children aged eight to twelve, his focus and emphasis through the summit is on children in their early years.
Back in the late nineties, Cottrell-Boyce was working on the film Welcome to Sarajevo and interviewed a Roma woman named Mariella Mehr. The Swiss authorities had imprisoned Mehr and her child was taken into care. When asked by Cottrell-Boyce, “How did you know you deserved more? How did you know life could be better?” Mehr replied, “I read Heidi.”
“There is a book for every child and the child has to be allowed to find that book. It’s not one size fits all – not everybody’s mind is going to be ignited by Roald Dahl or whoever. You need that range and a child needs that opportunity to find their own Heidi, their own stick of dynamite,” Cottrell-Boyce says.
He also wants to ensure that every child is read to by their parents before they start going to school. "It's a wonderful expression of love, and if the child's first experience of books is as an expression of love, as opposed to hearing ‘read this’ in school, then they're being given this huge invisible privilege that will be with them throughout their life.
"We have no clue what world we're sending our children into. We don't know what their jobs are going to look like, what roads are going to have, but we know they're going to need to know that to be happy… So that's my mission, to make sure that every child gets read to before they go to school.”
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