Malorie Blackman Quotes
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I try to widen the horizons of every child I meet, and part of that is promoting diverse forms, be it graphic novels, stories told in a narrative voice, or more translated books, as well as more diverse writers and more diverse characters.
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I have encountered those who feel that libraries have served their purpose and are no longer needed. There are those who consider them a soft target when it comes to local authority budget cuts. In certain political quarters, there is a refusal to see that our public library service needs active protection.
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I think what we need, especially in publishing, is more commissioning editors and editors who are people of colour.
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A film of my life would never happen!
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Books allow you to see the world through the eyes of others.
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There is a saying: 'The child is parent to the adult', which means whatever happens to you as a child or teenager affects the adult you become. You are forged in your history. And fiction is an incredibly important force in shaping children, and that's why fiction needs to be diverse.
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I would like to champion diverse forms like graphic novels and works told in verse and diverse writers and illustrators and diverse authors as well.
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I'm one of the few adults lucky enough to love their job. And when you've got bills to pay, you get on with it! I like challenges.
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I didn't even enter a bookshop until I was 14 because I couldn't afford books until I got my first Saturday job, but by the time I was six or seven, I spent practically every Saturday down my local library reading as much as I could and getting out as many books as I could.
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What I'm trying to do is to write a story. If you take something from it, that's wonderful; if you don't, that's wonderful as well.
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I believe we need more culturally diverse books - about disabled characters, though not about their disability, about people with different sexual orientations, or a boy who is a cross-dresser. We need to reflect the diversity of our society.
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I remember being in a history lesson and saying to my teacher, 'How come you never talk about black scientists and inventors and pioneers?' And she looked at me and said, 'Because there aren't any.'
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I think fan fiction is the way most writers start, and the same goes for music and design.
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I read a lot of highly unsuitable books for an 11-year-old. I was desperate to read as widely as possible. I thought, 'There are so many places I am never going to get the chance to visit, but I can if I read them.' And I did. I could go anywhere in the world - and off it - by reading.
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What I would like to do is make sure every primary school child has a library card, so where parents don't get their children library cards, we'll see if we can get schools to step in and make sure that every child has one.
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I hope to instill, in every child I meet, my love and enthusiasm for reading and stories.
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I remember, when I was at school, we would have a 10-minute storytelling session where we'd all sit on the floor cross-legged, and the teacher would read. It became something we all really looked forward to. That was part of the reason I grew to love stories.
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The best thing about being Children's Laureate has definitely been all the children and teens I've met.
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I suppose I've always lived in my own head. I didn't discover boys till sixth form. Then suddenly it was, 'Oh! Boys!'
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I wanted to have a body of work behind me before I wrote about racism.
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Books teach children to see the world through the eyes of others and empathise with others. It's about the story.
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Teenagers are some of the most passionate, dynamic and creative people I know. Yet, too often, this creative spark is left to flicker precariously and sometimes fade entirely.
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Children will go with any story as long as it's good, but white adults sometimes think that if a black child's on the cover, it is perhaps not for them.
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I subscribe to the online Urban Dictionary's definition of nerd: 'one whose IQ exceeds his weight'. I'm also keen on the same Urban Dictionary's definition of geek: 'the person you pick on in high school and wind up working for as an adult'. I happily proclaim myself a book nerd/reading geek and proud of it.