Congratulations Frank Cottrell-Boyce!

St John Bosco would like to say congratulations to local author Frank Cottrell-Boyce!

Liverpool-based Frank Cottrell-Boyce the multi award-winning author and screenwriter, has been crowned the Waterstones Children’s Laureate 2024 – 2026 and is launching the new campaign Reading Rights: Books Build a Brighter Future;

“I am so proud to be here today, being passed the torch of the Laureateship. Writing and reading has transformed my life – and I write children’s books because I think they help build the apparatus of happiness inside us. I’m privileged to be part of those intimate, crucial, person-forming moments when people share stories with the children in their lives. I’m privileged to visit schools up and down the country – to read to children, and to see a Britain that is innovative, eccentric, funny, up for it, open-hearted.

But I also get to see a different Britain. A Britain that is not fair. A Britain that’s a stranger to equality.

For too long, the life-changing benefits of children’s reading have not been taken seriously. And now – as our children face an unknown future – we risk losing a generation unless we act.
So, my tenure as Waterstones Children’s Laureate will have happiness at its heart, but it will be about urgency.

It will be about addressing invisible privilege and inequality.

It will be about the increasing number of children in poverty being left further and further behind.

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.

It will be about campaigning for a visible sign that this country values its children – to show them they are important.

That they are in fact our only hope.

So, I’m going to do everything in my power to get reading as a right for all into the national conversation. I’m calling the campaign Reading Rights: Books Build a Brighter Future
Because it’s about time.” ~ Frank Cottrell-Boyce

For 25 years, the Waterstones Children’s Laureate has been the foremost representative of children’s literature, awarded biannually to a renowned writer or illustrator in recognition of exceptional talent.

You can read about your new Waterstones Children’s Laureate here, you can listen to his podcast The Island of Brilliant here or follow the conversation online @frankcottrell_b.