Primary Times Staffordshire Back to School 2017

An Interview with Lauren Child
Primary Times have been talking to Lauren Child, the new
Waterstones’ Children’s Laureate. A writer and illustrator,
she is best known for the Charlie and Lola, Clarice Bean
and Ruby Redfort series. She has received numerous
awards and was given an MBE in 2010 for her services
to literature. Her latest book in the Charlie and Lola
series, ‘A Dog With Nice Ears’, is due to be released on 28
September.
nine years old, and as soon as I finished it, I read
it all over again. Another is Astrid Lindgren’s
Pippi Longstocking. I loved her because she
was a child like no other. She was a girl
and she was funny and there weren’t enough
books about funny girls in those days. She’s
very courageous and doesn’t really care
what people think about her in the best
possible way. She doesn’t worry about what she’s wearing and doing
and she is able to
be herself.
How does it feel to be the new Waterstones’
Children’s Laureate?
It is a great honour but it’s also a great responsibility. It feels slightly
unreal too, partly because my career began almost 20 years ago,
exactly the time Quentin Blake was the first Children’s Laureate.
Quentin was a huge influence on my becoming an illustrator. I
loved his illustrations really before I knew who he was as a person.
There was the Grimble and the illustrations from Betsy Byers 18th
Emergency, my favourite book as a child. And I remember watching
him on television back in the days when the BBC had a programme
called Jackanory. It was so wonderful to see live drawing as the story
was told, and in fact Quentin Blake was the first illustrator I realised
was an actual real person. It was so different in those days. You didn’t
have the same chance to meet authors and illustrators as you do now.
What do you plan to do as Laureate?
I’m interested in championing children’s creativity and I want to
encourage children to spend a little of their time looking, listening
and making things because they’re driven to create. I’ll be starting a
blog soon called ‘Staring Into Space’ where I’m going to hopefully help
inspire that.
I also want to champion reading and drawing for pleasure and to
elevate children’s book illustration to the level of other art forms. I
think illustration is seen as something less than fine art, and writing
for children as slightly less than writing for adults. I think we can
be a little bit patronising about it. That’s a shame, because we know
that literature is life-changing for children and the first art we really
get up close to is in books. That’s where we begin with reading and
storytelling. We do children a disservice if we can’t see and celebrate
its power.
I also want to talk about diversity, as inclusivity is really important to
me. There aren’t enough books written by and about people of all
kinds of backgrounds and culture. It’s important because if as a child
you don’t see yourself on the front cover of a book then how do you
feel part of society?
Which books, authors and illustrators are your
main inspirations?
I have so many. When I was a child I loved The Secret Garden by
Frances Hodgson Burnett. I remember reading it when I was about
When you were growing up did you feel you
could be yourself like Pippi Longstocking?
No. I was terrible at being myself. I was very self conscious and
worried about what people were thinking - am I wearing the right
thing, am I saying the right thing? All of my characters in my books
now are at least moving in the direction of being themselves.
How important do you think it is for children
to daydream and stare out of the window?
I think it’s vital. You can’t come up with anything without a certain
amount of boredom, because boredom is the beginning of
invention. Solving problems and letting your mind wander and find
the edges of something. It’s how you get to an inspired place and
become creative. When I get really stuck in my own work now, I go
out and look around at things. I go to the cinema, an art gallery, I
put on the radio, I tune into people’s conversations. You hear these
amazing things. And when I hear or see something interesting I
write it down. You end up with notebooks full of interesting things.
What are you working on now?
I’m writing a chapter book for younger readers, for around six to
nine-year-olds. It’s very, very illustrated because I missed drawing
so much when I was writing my Ruby Redfort series. So - lots of
drawings. My new Charlie and Lola book A Dog With Nice Ears is
coming out in the Autumn. It was inspired by looking at all the dogs
in the park near our home with my daughter and imagining what
kind of dog we would like to have.
Do you have any advice for children that are
starting to write?
My advice would be to write what you enjoy. You need to write
about something that interests you. It might be something funny
that you see out of the window or something that you’ve imagined
or about your family. You’ve got to enjoy what you’re writing or you
won’t be able to carry on. You’ve got to let things develop, listen,
and watch how people talk and interact. Dig deep into your own
memory and try and tap into how things feel.
Lauren Child’s latest
book in the Charlie
and Lola series, ‘A
Dog With Nice Ears’,
is published by
Orchard Books on 28
September and will
be available from
high street bookstores
and online at a
recommended priced of £12.99.