BookBrunch

The first 10 years of the Children's Laureates have been a triumph surely beyond the hopes even of Michael Morpurgo and Ted Hughes, who came up with the idea to raise the profile and status of writing and illustrating for children, and of the original founding committee. Let us not forget the debt we owe to those who worked on the Laureateships behind the scenes: notably John Dunne, Julia Eccleshare, Lindsay Fraser, Nikki Marsh, Kim Reynolds, Lois Beeson, and Alyx Price.

Although the original brief for the Laureates was loose, the range of projects the five Laureates have put in place is breathtaking. Quentin Blake (now CBE - his first three successors are all OBEs) immediately set the bar high for being an advocate of and ambassador for children's books, not least with his Tell Me a Picture exhibition (at the National Gallery in 2001). By juxtaposing the work of illustrators including John Burningham, Michael Foreman and Roberto Innocenti with that of fine artists from Uccello to Paula Rego, the exhibition must have permanently changed attitudes to children's illustration. Blake's current project, a Gallery of Illustration, is surely aided by his having held the Laureateship.

Meanwhile his successors' legacy will include Anne Fine's Home Library project, with downloadable bookplates by 150 distinguished illustrators, and her three poetry anthologies, A Shame To Miss, for different age groups, which are a lasting guide to nurturing a love of poems. Michael Morpurgo's tireless peripatetic storytelling, which reached children in the farthest outposts of the UK, reaffirmed the value of stories at school and at home; Jacqueline Wilson campaigned about reading aloud, publishing her own choice of Great Books to Read Aloud and personally sharing her love of reading with 32,000 children as well as supporting half a dozen children's charities; and Michael Rosen not only took up the baton of his predecessors to pressure the Government to put books back into literacy teaching, not least with his TV documentary Just Read, but established the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, did a great deal to support The Big Picture Campaign. and mounted an exhibition of 400 years of children's poetry, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat, at the British Library. The exhibition should do for children's poetry what Blake's exhibition did for children's illustration.

The Laureates could hardly have done more politically, personally and through the media to promote children's reading at school and at home, and to make non-readers into readers. Remember too the laureates' holograms at the Unicorn Theatre, and now the Laureates' Lists promotion with Waterstone's, not only celebrating classic children's literature but drawing attention to great illustration, recent humour, and the lasting value of Enid Blyton. And the Laureateship has been imitated in America, where Jon Scieszka is the first to hold the post.

And yet there is perhaps one thing missing, which I know is under discussion. The superhuman level of energy of the first five Laureates, with their travelling commitments, their platform performances and their constant creativity about campaigns and projects in support of children's reading, has set a precedent. We are no longer able to honour some of our greatest writers and illustrators with Laureateships, because the distinction comes with too many demands for some. So a Laureates' Lifetime Achievement award would be in order - chosen by the public, or the existing Laureates, or such a committee as makes the Laureate appointments. Whatever the selection system, the consequences would doubtless be the same: that we would recognise the contributions of Shirley Hughes, Helen Oxenbury, John Burningham, Raymond Briggs, Peter Dickinson, Eva Ibbotson, Diana Wynne Jones … without expecting too much from them. Then everything the original accolade intended would be achieved.

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