‘I assumed children’s books were written by people who were white and dead’: New Children’s Award winner Patrice Lawrence children’s award winners
wWhen Patrice Lawrence got the call to become Britain’s next Children’s Laureate, her first reaction was disbelief. “I was absolutely shocked,” she says, laughing. She’s just beginning to process what it means to join a lineage that includes Jacqueline Wilson, Quentin Blake, Michael Rosen, Julia Donaldson, Mallory Blackman and, most recently, Frank Cottrell-Boyce. “So many