Frank Cottrell-Boyce has been named the new Children’s Laureate, a role celebrating creativity and promoting children’s literature. He aims to address inequality and ensure all children have access to books.
Author Frank Cottrell-Boyce Named New Children’s Laureate
Novelist and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce has been announced as the new children‘s laureate.
He will assume the role, which involves championing reading and children’s books, from this year until 2026. Cottrell-Boyce expressed, “I am so proud to be the new children’s laureate,” and added, “Writing and reading has transformed my life.”
He succeeds Joseph Coelho, known for his Luna Loves picture books and Fairy Tales Gone Bad, who has held the position for the past two years.
Previous laureates include Julia Donaldson, Quentin Blake, Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Rosen, Anne Fine, Malorie Blackman, and Michael Morpurgo.
Cottrell-Boyce was presented with the bespoke silver laureate medal by Coelho during a ceremony at Howard Assembly Room in Leeds on Tuesday.
“I write children’s books because I think they help build the apparatus of happiness inside us,” Cottrell-Boyce said in a statement. “I’m privileged to be part of those intimate, crucial, person-forming moments when people share stories with the children in their lives.”
However, he also cautioned that the benefits of children’s reading had not been taken seriously enough, stating, “We risk losing a generation unless we act.”
Liverpool-based Cottrell-Boyce emphasized that his tenure as laureate would be driven by a sense of “urgency,” aiming to “address invisible privilege and inequality.”
“It will be about the increasing number of children in poverty being left further and further behind,” he explained. “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.”
The Waterstones Children’s Laureate is appointed every two years to a distinguished writer or illustrator. Managed by BookTrust, the role aims to celebrate creativity and storytelling, promote reading and children’s literature, and champion the right of all children to enjoy lives enriched by books.
Cottrell-Boyce won the Carnegie Medal for his debut novel ‘Millions,’ published in 2004, which was also adapted into a film directed by Danny Boyle. His other novels include ‘Cosmic,’ ‘Framed,’ ‘The Astounding Broccoli Boy,’ ‘Runaway Robot,’ and ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again,’ an official sequel commissioned by the Fleming Estate.
His screenwriting work includes co-writing the Platinum Jubilee Paddington sketch, as well as credits on ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Goodbye Christopher Robin,’ and ‘The Beautiful Game.’
