Cowell’s top five
The Waterstones Children’s Laureate’s charter
Every child has the right to... 01
Read for the joy of it. Books should
be like sweets, not brussels sprouts. 02
Access new books in schools, libraries
and bookshops. If your family doesn’t have the money to buy books, and doesn’t go to the public library, and there isn’t a library in your primary school, how on earth are you going to become a reader for the joy of it?
03 Access advice from a trained librarian or
a bookseller. This is skilled work, and although it has become fashionable to sneer at experts, I’m a big believer that if you need heart surgery you want an expert to do it.
04 Own their own book. Because it makes
you more likely to read for the joy of it. 05
See themselves reflected in a book.
Did I mention that books are for everyone? 06
Be read aloud to. Books read to you
as a child live with you all your life. 07
Be offered some choice in what they read.
You can put a book down if you’re not enjoying it.
08 Be creative for at least 15 minutes a week.
No rules, no marking, just fun. 09
See an author event at least once.
Seeing authors live brings the magic to life… 10
Every child has the right to have
a planet to read on. This ought to be self-explanatory...
TheBookseller.com
was given to “be creative in” as a child didn’t show any signs that she would go on to be a Children’s Laureate in the future. She added that the creative industries are worth more than £100bn in the UK annually, and “we are a country that does fantastically well and we perform on the world stage. Yet we had the lowest take-up of Art GCSE in 2016 that we have ever had. Creative subjects are seen as ‘soſt’ subjects—what does that say about how we value culture?”
Taking time
Cowell studied English Literature at universit, then had a brief career in publishing before going to art school. She said she started her career late, just as she was also embarking on motherhood, and had “a lot to prove” as a result. But, she stressed, she wasn’t an instant success. “I wrote four or five picture books at first and they weren’t hugely successful, although I was pleased with them. Even How to Train Your Dragon, which came out in 2003, was released quite quietly in paperback. It was a cult thing. “One of the good things [about being a slow-burn success] is that no one was concentrating on whether I was ‘the next big thing’, so I could take some risks. Now, it is not unusual to have an action-packed book with lots of illustrations, but at the time it was.”
The series now numbers 12 titles, plus films and numerous spin-offs, and Cowell has contin- ued to work on picture books during her career, including the Emily Brown titles, illustrated by Neal Layton, for which she has a particular fondness. She is currently working on the fourth book in her new fiction series The Wizards of Once, and when asked how she will combine being an author and the Children’s Laureate, she laughed and said: “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunit. I’m hoping it will all work out! To quote Shakespeare, all’s well that end’s well.”
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