New children's laureate Malorie Blackman (and why it matters)

[zooey_glass04]

(Coming out of lurkerdom to make a brief post on something important to me.)

Congratulations to Malorie Blackman, the new UK Children's Laureate! All the previous Laureates have done amazing work promoting children's books and reading, and I am thrilled to have a POC as the new incumbent.

And congratulations to Tariq Mehmood, the first non-white

Comments

[gestaltrose]

That would be fantastic. I will hope along with you.

[innie_darling]

I love this post.

[amberdreams]

How had I missed Malorie getting this appointment? Damn that is great news - she's a really imaginative writer, doesn't dress things up just because she's writing for 'children'. I loved her Checkmate series for challenging my preconceptions - being a white person I realised reading those books that I automatically assume the characters I read about are also white so every time she reminded me that this story reverses the 'norm' was a jolt. I also saw her give a talk at Norwich library and she was brilliant with the kids who went to see her.