Children’s laureate here and there

The position of children’s laureate is a high profile one in Britain. Especially as the current holder Micheal Rosen seems to have the gift of bilocation and appears in every single children’s books related media piece or event. What is shows is that with a media friendly hook like the laureate you can generate increased profile and public awareness.

An Irish children’s laureate has been proprosed at a number of events recently including some arts council consultation meetings and yesterday’s CBI Cle forum (David has some good notes on this, there will be a record of it online on CBI’s site in coming weeks).

A key figure with a strong profile might be just what the Irish children’s books scene needs. Who that writer/illustrator might be is a whole other question!

Meanwhile the process of choosing Michael’s sucessor in the UK is underway.

Roald Dahl Funny Prize – Winners Announced

The winners were announced at an awards ceremony at the Unicorn Theatre in London on 13 November. The prize is presented by BookTrust  in association with Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen. The panel of five judges was chaired by Michael Rosen; the other judges were Sophie Dahl, Dara O’Briain, Chris Riddell and Kaye Umansky.

More over on Booktrust

The winner of the Funniest Book for Children Aged Six and Under was The Witch’s Children Go to School by Ursula Jones, illus. Russell Ayto (Orchard Books)

The winner of the Funniest Book for Children Aged Seven to Fourteen was Mr Gum and the Dancing Bear by Andy Stanton, illus. David Tazzyman (Egmont Press)

Michael Rosen, Chair of judges, said:

‘The Witch’s Children Go To School is a rumbustious tale in the tradition of mischievous spirits causing mayhem and disorder where it’s least wanted. Every page shouts with the sound of chaos and surprise: we are told that a school is turned into a storybook, the class teacher into the Mad Hatter and the school inspector is turned into a big smelly cheese. And that’s not even half of it. This is a book that can be enjoyed many times, the corners of pages are as important as the middles, each spread invites the eye to busy itself all over the page hunting for new gags, while new impossibilities of anatomy, architecture and physics appear at every turn. The book is a delight.

‘Andy Stanton has developed a comic style all of his own, full of ludicrous similes, uproarious bathos, absurdity and grossness. Mr Gum and the Dancing Bear fulfils the requirement that a truly funny novel should have at least a laugh a page and a gasp-making denouement. At the heart of the book is a a thought about how we treat animals, but don’t let that confuse you. In fact, confusion is the outright winner here – as Jonathan Ripples says, ‘pointing to an orange blob on his map, ‘I thought this was England, but it turned out to be a bit of chicken tikka I spilt last night.’