Children's plea to make exclusion a thing of the past
A group of children joined Quentin Blake, former Children's Laureate, to say "We want to see far more disabled characters in books", when they officially handed over the findings of the Quentin Blake Award project at the Unicorn Theatre, London on 13th July.
The Award is made annually by the Roald Dahl Foundation to a charity which has special merit and would benefit from additional support for a new project, with Quentin deciding which organisation to support. Booktrust was recently selected, and chose to use the Award to carry out a unique consultation project which aimed to collect the views of children across the UK on the representation of disability (or absence of it) in children's books.
Quentin Blake, eager to be the first to hear the views of those who had taken part, met some of the children from several of the many schools consulted, who felt passionate about the project. When they met at the Unicorn Theatre, the children talked through some of the many findings of the work, explaining how important such images are both in making disabled children feel included and in ensuring that books reflect a representative picture of society. The findings confirmed how unhappy children were that so few books even feature a disabled character, and how even fewer books do so in a positive and unobtrusive way.
Quentin Blake took the findings so seriously that he immediately started to re-work an image from one of his books, under the guidance and direction of the young experts. Sitting under the giant Unicorn at the theatre, Quentin started to re-sketch the Chocolate Fudge Banana Cake from All Join In to include characters with different conditions. He commented:
"It was fascinating to hear the children's views on this subject, and the book world now has a real duty to respond to this need. I am aware that many writers, illustrators and publishers shy away from this subject, but the children today have shown me just how easy this can actually be to include positive images."
The findings of the project can be found at www.bookmark.org.uk
The Award is made annually by the Roald Dahl Foundation to a charity which has special merit and would benefit from additional support for a new project, with Quentin deciding which organisation to support. Booktrust was recently selected, and chose to use the Award to carry out a unique consultation project which aimed to collect the views of children across the UK on the representation of disability (or absence of it) in children's books.
Quentin Blake, eager to be the first to hear the views of those who had taken part, met some of the children from several of the many schools consulted, who felt passionate about the project. When they met at the Unicorn Theatre, the children talked through some of the many findings of the work, explaining how important such images are both in making disabled children feel included and in ensuring that books reflect a representative picture of society. The findings confirmed how unhappy children were that so few books even feature a disabled character, and how even fewer books do so in a positive and unobtrusive way.
Quentin Blake took the findings so seriously that he immediately started to re-work an image from one of his books, under the guidance and direction of the young experts. Sitting under the giant Unicorn at the theatre, Quentin started to re-sketch the Chocolate Fudge Banana Cake from All Join In to include characters with different conditions. He commented:
"It was fascinating to hear the children's views on this subject, and the book world now has a real duty to respond to this need. I am aware that many writers, illustrators and publishers shy away from this subject, but the children today have shown me just how easy this can actually be to include positive images."
The findings of the project can be found at www.bookmark.org.uk
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