Frank Cottrell-Boyce has been named as the new Waterstones children’s laureate, pledging to address “invisible privilege and inequality” related to books and reading during his two-year tenure.
The children’s author and screenwriter was presented with the laureate medal by the outgoing children’s laureate, Joseph Coelho, at a ceremony held in Leeds on Tuesday.
Cottrell-Boyce said that his tenure “will have happiness at its heart”, but will be “about urgency” and the “increasing number of children in poverty being left further and further behind”. He has called his campaign Reading Rights: Books Build a Brighter Future.
“It will be about calling for national provision so that every child – from their earliest years – has access to books, reading and the transformative ways in which they improve long-term life chances.”
Cottrell-Boyce’s books include his debut Millions – for which he won the Carnegie medal – Cosmic, Framed, The Astounding Broccoli Boy, Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth, Runaway Robot, Noah’s Gold, and The Wonder Brothers. As a screenwriter, he has worked on Doctor Who, while his script for Michael Morpurgo’s Kensuke’s Kingdom won a British Animation award. He also wrote the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The appointment of Cottrell-Boyce “gives us a powerful advocate for disadvantaged and vulnerable children and the transformative effect that reading can have on their lives”, said Diana Gerald, CEO of BookTrust, which manages the laureate role.
As laureate, Cottrell-Boyce plans to hold a national summit with experts across the politics, education, literacy and early years sectors. “Our children are living through the aftermath of a series of crises – the pandemic, a series of wars and an unfolding environmental crisis. The only public conversation is about how we can make our children ‘catch up’, which seems to me a kind of code for forgetting this ever happened.
“None of us has the slightest idea about what the future now holds for them – but the one thing we do know is that they will need to know how to be happy.” He added that whichever political party wins Thursday’s election has a “huge” responsibility.
Kate Edwards, chair of the children’s laureate judging panel for 2024 to 2026, said that Cottrell-Boyce “has long been a passionate voice in the campaign for children’s books to be given the value and recognition that they deserve”.
Coelho, a poet and children’s author who was announced as the 12th laureate in July 2022, ran several projects during his tenure, including Poetry Prompts, which saw him create a series of educational videos about poetry techniques.
This year marks 25 years of the children’s laureate, with Quentin Blake being the first to take on the role in 1999. Other past laureates include Michael Morpurgo, Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Rosen, Julia Donaldson, Malorie Blackman, Lauren Child and Cressida Cowell.