Malorie Blackman has been announced as the new Children’s Laureate

Yes, Julia Donaldson’s tenure as Children’s Laureate has come to an end, and the mantle has passed to Malorie Blackman, who will hold the position till 2015. You can find out more about the Children’s Laureate on the official website.

Blackman is the latest in a line of laureates which began with Quentin Blake in 1999. The list of former incumbents reads like a list of who’s who in modern children’s literature: as well as Blake, there’s Anne Fine, Michael Morpurgo, Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Rosen, Anthony Browne and, of course, Julia Donaldson. Malorie Blackman will certainly hold her own amongst these writers and has already stated that her goal is to encourage more children to spend more time reading, which sounds good to us! She also plans to continue Donaldson’s support of public libraries, which must also be a good thing.

If you’ve yet to discover Blackman as a writer, you can borrow some of her books from Townhill Library. You’ll find them in the Teaching Practice section, so if you call in for them now you won’t have to renew or return them until the 4^th October! (This is because our 6 week Teaching Practice loans have already rolled over to next term. Look out for this happening with our other loan categories as summer vacation approaches!)

Before we say a final goodbye, you might like to see what we had to say about Julia Donaldson in her role as laureate. Of course, it’s not really goodbye as she’ll still be writing lots of lovely books. You can borrow those from Townhill Library too, including some in Welsh! (Wwsh ar y brwsh, anyone?)

Julia Donaldson MBE, OOF (One of Our Favourites)

Julia Donaldson has had a very good year, what with receiving an MBE and being made Children’s Laureate. We at SMU Libraries think that sounds like a jolly good excuse to discover or re-discover her excellent books, many of which are available in our Teaching Practice collection at Townhill Library.

Donaldson is probably most famous for The Gruffalo, the story of a clever mouse who manages to outwit a string of predators whilst on a walk through the deep, dark wood. Well worth a read! You might have seen the star-studded television adaptation that has been shown on the BBC for the last two Christmases, in which case you’ll know what a charming story this is. You can find out more about this animated version here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pk64x#clips. Hopefully we can all enjoy it again this Christmas, but until then, come and borrow a copy of the book from Townhill Library!

However, there’s more to Julia than just the Gruffalo. Not only has she written many more picture books for children (Room on the Broom is probably my favourite), but she’s also been very busy this year speaking out in support of libraries as part of her role as Children’s Laureate. Find out more about Children’s Laureates past and present on the official website (http://www.childrenslaureate.org.uk/), which includes some blog posts on Julia’s thoughts about libraries: http://www.childrenslaureate.org.uk/news-and-blog/blog/tag/313. We knew she was our favourite for a reason!