Photo of new Children's Laureate Jacqueline Wilson with the first holder of the post, Quentin Blake, and the retiring Laureate and co-founder of the award, Michael Morpurgo 

Jacqueline Wilson is New Children's Laureate

The award-winning children's writer Jacqueline Wilson was this evening announced as the new Children's Laureate at a ceremonyat BAFTA in London. She was presented with theLaureate medal and a bursary of £10,000 by Sir Christopher Frayling. Chairman of Arts Council England.

Jacqueline is the fourth winner of the biennial award and she takes up the baton from Michael Morpurgo, who has made stories the focus of his two years of activities. One of the many events he has spoken at was the SLA /IASL conference in Dublin last summer.

The new Children's Laureate announced that she will be spending time focusing on the development of a love of reading in younger children by encouraging story times in libraries, schools and among families. No stranger to awards she has been given a special Childline award, a Nibbie for services to bookselling and in 2002 was awarded an OBE for services to literacy.

Philip Pullman receives the Astrid Lindgren Award

Philip Pullman today received the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award at the open-air museum of Skansen in Stockholm. The award was presented by HRH Crown Princess Victoria in the presence of the Minister for Culture, Leif Pagrotsky.

The citation for the award calls him 'a master storyteller in a number of genres, from historical novels and fantasy to social realism and highly amusing parodies ....Through his strong characters he stands firmly on the side of young people, ruthlessly questioning authority and proclaiming humanism and the power of love whilst maintaining an optimistic belief in the child even in the darkest of situations.'

Philip Pullman was last week feted at an event at the British Library in London and congratulated for his work by the culture secretary Tessa Jowell, 'on behalf of the government'. He has recently called for the setting up of a suitable award such as a medal for lifetime achievement in literature for children and young people. He pointed out that there were some who were very deserving of the Children's Laureate honour, but were physically unable to carry out the tasks that it required.

A former teacher and author of a range of books for children and young people, including the His Dark Materials trilogy, and a winner of the Whitbread Award, Pullman shares the Astrid Lindgren Award, the world's most valuable for children's literature, with Japanese illustrator Ryoji Arai.

Ruth Kelly considering national payscale for support staff in English Schools

In an interview with the Guardian yesterday, Secretary of State for Education and Skills Ruth Kelly said that she is prepared to reverse government policy by stripping responsibility for setting pay from local authorities and bringing the pay structure for support staff into line with that of teachers, thus creating a national pay structure for staff including librarians.

This should create a fairer and more equable system for support staff. Ms Kelly also said she will make it a priority to develop "a culture of professional development in our schools", another bone of contention for many librarians who find it impossible to secure funding for professional or personal development.

See article in Guardian online

Anne Robinson meets Anne Robinson 

SLA School Librarian of the Year Award

After several weeks of waiting the first winner of the SLA School Librarian of the Year Award was announced today.

Anne Robinson, librarian of Nicholas Chamberlaine School, Bedworth, Warwickshire, was presented with her title and certificate by her namesake, Anne Robinson, journalist and television presenter, on the set of the Weakest Links programme. She also received a limited edition print of a Raymond Briggs picture specially created as a prize for the award winner and a free place at the SLA Weekend Course to be held at the University of Surrey from 17th to 19th June this year.