13 Feb 2020
Young Writers Meet New Children’s Laureate
Young writers from ACT Public Schools attended the announcement of the new Australian Children’s Laureate, held at the National Library of Australia this week.
Students from Amaroo School, Red Hill Primary School, Forrest Primary School, Miles Franklin Primary School, Telopea Park School and Queanbeyan Public School attended the event.
Author Ursula Dubosarsky was appointed as Children’s Laureate for 2020-2021 and for her first address in the new role, encouraged all students to “Read for their lives” to enrich their lives for their whole lives.
The Australian Children’s Laureate Foundation appoints the Laureate to be an advocate for reading, creativity and storytelling in the lives of children and young people. Previous Laureate’s include Morris Gleitzman, Leigh Hobbs, Jackie French, Boori Monty Pryor and Alison Lester.
In between the speeches and announcements, Year Two students from Forrest Primary School gave a performance of “Words make the world go around” to big applause.
The audience was further entertained by a dramatic reading of a new book Ursula had written for the occasion- a tale of travelling ants who use storytelling to inspire feelings of hope when times seem tough- performed by several student guests.
Avid readers and aspiring authors from Red Hill Primary School with Teacher Librarian Emma Cox.
Red Hill Primary School student Evelyn commented: “When I was really little, I used to read books by Julia Donaldson and Andy Griffiths, and I still read those type of books. I was inspired by the creativity they put in their writing, I thought I could do that as well.”
Evelyn likes to write imaginative, humorous stories in class and draws inspiration from her favourite authors and books.
“Andy Griffiths put all these different stories in 104 Story Treehouse, and it inspired me to write quirky stories,” she said.
Clarrie is also a student at Red Hill Primary who he loves to read and write in his spare time.
“When I was little, I used to read every book that I could find and that I could read.
“One of the first stories I wrote was a non-fiction story for people who are younger than me. It was about vegetables and why they’re good for you.”
Clarrie said he was inspired to write his own stories when he read Andy Griffiths.
“He inspires me to write books because he’s really good at writing and all the jokes he writes are really funny.”
As for their favourite books, both students agree that The Treehouse series and The Friday Barnes series are the best.
Maybe Evelyn or Clarrie will be a future Australian Children’s Laureate!