It's official. Jacqueline Wilson has been crowned, if only with laurels. She is to be the Children's Laureate for the next two years. The baton was handed on by Michael Morpurgo in a ceremony at BAFTA on 26th May.
It's official. Jacqueline Wilson has been crowned, if only with laurels. She is to be the Children's Laureate for the next two years. The baton was handed on by Michael Morpurgo in a ceremony at BAFTA on 26th May.
Morpurgo, who was the major force behind setting up the laureateship, has been a tireless advocate for children's books over the past two years. Together with his wife Clare, who has been an outstanding support, he has travelled all over the UK and been a regular spokesperson on radio programmes such as Today.
But it would be fair to say that when he was first appointed, media people had not heard of him. This is emphatically not the case with Jacqueline Wilson. The Bookseller (27.5.5) suggests that she will be øthe highest-profile laureate to date.Ó
Not only are there the thirty plus books in print, the OBE, the string of awards. Jackie, as she is universally known, has already visited hundreds of schools across the country, topped 20 million in book sales and is the most borrowed author from British libraries, totting up about 2 million loans.
So what will she do with her new role that she hasn't achieved already? Reading aloud is at the top of her list of priorities; she wants to encourage it at all age levels, not just to very young children, but right up into adulthood. She will be supporting many other existing initiatives but has no plans to stop writing during her busy two years, which will be good news for her many fans.
The children's laureate is now sponsored by Ottakar's bookshop chain, taking over from Waterstone's, who have been doing it since its beginning in 1998. The DCMS funds the £10,000 bursary and Book Trust handles the administration.
Jacqueline Wilson is the fourth Laureate, after Quentin Blake, Anne Fine and Michael Morpurgo.
~ Mary Hoffman