Children's Laureate Blog

Find out what Anthony Browne has been doing in his role as Children's Laureate

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  Getting started

  Posted Friday September 25th 2009
  by Anthony Browne

  It seems that whenever anyone asks me how I’m coping with the Laureateship it’s always with a sympathetic voice and a concerned expression. I suppose the questioner realises that for most of my adult life I’ve spent my days working quietly in the studio, and wonders how I’m going to cope with the amount of talking I’m going to have to do in the next two years. Well, so far, so good.

  The ceremony in June was one of the most special days of my life, with Michael Rosen handing me the medal and Andrew Motion speaking so sensitively about my work. The audience were warm and receptive and I even got to play the Shape Game with my brother Michael; the first time for fifty years!

  The next few days were a haze of interviews: breakfast television, Newsround, Woman’s Hour, PM, Night Waves and many more. Then the newspapers: from a thoughtful well-written piece by Sarah Crown in the Guardian to the Telegraph’s Culture Clinic by a journalist who’d neither met nor spoken to me but managed to compare me to Hitler, Napoleon and Stalin!

  At the beginning of July I escaped to Nice for the opening of a…

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  Words and Pictures: What use are picture books?

  Posted Wednesday September 23rd 2009
  by Katherine Woodfine

  Anthony Browne joined fellow award-winning illustrators Emily Gravett and Catherine Rayner to take part in Words and Pictures, a discussion about the value of picture books, at the Free Word Centre in London on 21 September.

  Chaired by Sunday Times journalist Nicolette Jones, the discussion covered everything from the illustrators' favourite childhood picture books to why they all believe picture books are such an important form of art. The illustrators finished the event by playing the Shape Game.
  

  This event was part of the Free Word Festival celebrating the launch of the new Free Word Centre. Throughout the festival, a selection of works by the three illustrators will also be on display in the Free Word foyer.
  

  Watch a selection of videos from the event or check out some photographs below:

  

  Anthony and Emily play the Shape Game

  

  Visitors to the event looking at books…

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