Australian Children’s Laureate

Ursula and Tohby together!

Linda J

Laureate Ursula promotes access to books via library cards!

What a privilege to attend a dinner with Ursula Dubosarsky and Tohby Riddle as guest speakers! What a wonderful way to celebrate nearing the end of a difficult year – dinner at the Farm, Katoomba, with CBCA lovers of children’s literature.

Aside from the amazing location and dinner, we heard from Ursula regarding her role as Australian Children’s Laureate, her long-term association with Tohby Riddle (from early days at The School Magazine) and the things which inspired her to write her latest book, ‘Pierre’s Not There’. Tohby then spoke about ‘Yahoo Creek’ (which was shortlisted this year in the CBCA awards), as well as his recent collaboration with Ursula on ‘the March of the Ants’ (due for publication in MARCH 2021!)

While speaking about her laureate role, Ursula emphasised it was an honour, and a job/role to be accomplished – not just an award for past work, but a challenge to inspire and encourage Australian children as readers and writers. With her many engagements as Children’s Laureate, past and present, she (and her magpie company) will undoubtedly continue to inspire many young readers and the professionals who promote children’s literature.

Tohby also spoke warmly of their past work together at the School Magazine (in publication since 1916, and still going – with subscriptions available!!), and he then introduced some of his latest books. This included ‘Yahoo Creek’ and the upcoming ‘the March of the Ants’.

Providing insights into the work of an author/illustrator, Tohby pointed to the endpapers of ‘Yahoo Creek’ (which are clips of Trove-sourced newspapers) as well as how these articles provided the language for ‘Yahoo Creek’. What an amazing use of historical newspaper records to create an imaginative tale for Australia’s youth!

When it came to illustrating Ursula’s story ‘the March of the Ants’, Tohby identified the ‘monastic’ dedication required to illustrate the multitudes of ants in the story (for an exacting audience who would not accept an illustrator sliding off in his drawing) – all to enable the true telling of the tale. Their past collaborations must have spurred him on in those challenging times!

Finally, Ursula spoke about her inspiration for ‘Pierre’s Not There’ – visiting the Palace of Versailles – almost under protest – at the least, disinterested – then sidetracked by a French puppet theatre nearby. Her puppet theatre visit, subsequent emotions and thoughts about this exploration inspired the events portrayed in ‘Pierre’s Not There’. And her haunting recollections ‘illuminate’ her feelings where this tale began. It’s always interesting to get into the mind of an author and hear where ideas come from…

Fans of both Ursula and Tohby should be looking forward to their new collaboration/publication in March – ‘the March of the Ants’. Here’s a link to the short story which has inspired the picture book. Can you picture how it might be pictured? Can you see it how Tohby may have illustrated it?

# Ursula is one of six Australian representatives recently nominated for the 2021 international Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

Laureate – “Read For Your Life”

Linda J

Ursula Dubosarsky was welcomed as the new Australian Children’s Laureate for 2020/21 at the National Library of Australia today.

In keeping with previous laureates, Ursula is renowned and well-revered as an author of children’s books, across many age groups; as well as being one driven to promote reading among the youth of Australian for many years.

If children learn to love to read—not just to be able to read—then they will be readers their whole life long. It’s about human motivation. A child has to want to read for themselves, not be told to read,’ said Dubosarsky.

‘Joining the library gives them access to an unbounded wealth of reading material, where slowly they can start to find what they really want to read. A child becomes a lifelong reader not by chance, but by opportunity. That’s how you make a reader for life.’ (Quote from Ursula via Books+Publishing website)

From all (Twitter) accounts, her selection was greatly applauded today – by those present at the National Library of Australia today, and in online spaces too.

Certainly deserving for an author of more than 60 books (which are listed here). In addition to this are the many hours she has dedicated to workshops and presentations for students, teacher librarians, teachers and other professional associations over many many years.

Australian Children’s Laureate theme 2020/21

And so begins her new mission to encourage:

… a generation of readers that would continue to read their whole life long and to do that, children need access to all kinds of books, and “more books than any one family or even school can every provide”. (From SMH article: New children’s laureate worries for teen readers)

Congratulations, Ursula. We are right behind you!