Patrice Lawrence, the acclaimed author of young adult novels including Orangeboy and Indigo Donut, has been named the UK's next children's laureate. The 59-year-old writer says she was in "absolute shock" when she received the call, joining a lineage that includes Jacqueline Wilson, Quentin Blake, Michael Rosen, Julia Donaldson, Malorie Blackman, and Frank Cottrell-Boyce.
Lawrence plans to build on the work of outgoing laureate Cottrell-Boyce, who focused on reading for pleasure during the UK's National Year of Reading. She aims to address what she sees as an increasingly socially divided Britain, using books as a vehicle to foster a sense of belonging. "We're such a fractured society at the moment," she says. "Personally, for the first time in a long while, as a Black person and the child of immigrants, I've felt unsafe. And if I feel that as an adult, how on earth do some children feel?"
From social justice to children's literature
Before becoming a children's author, Lawrence spent years working in organisations focused on children's rights and social justice. Her breakthrough YA novel Orangeboy was published in 2016 when she was 49, winning the Waterstones children's book prize for older children and the Bookseller YA book prize, and being shortlisted for the Costa Children's book award. Her follow-up, Indigo Donut, cemented her reputation.
Lawrence has a practical vision for her laureateship. "To change policy you need evidence," she says. "We say stories work, let's show how they work." She hopes to gather research from children in care, refugee families, and the children of prisoners to demonstrate how books change lives.
Personal journey to authorship
Lawrence was born in 1967 to Trinidadian parents who both came to Britain to train as nurses. Her parents separated before she was born, and she spent her first four years privately fostered by a white working-class family in Brighton while her mother completed her training. Her foster mother signed her up to the library and taught her to read before school. When she later moved back with her mother, books were everywhere. "Books were just part of my life," she says.
Despite this, she never imagined becoming a children's author herself. She read Enid Blyton, Arthur Ransome, and Tolkien, and assumed children's literature could not be written by people who looked like her. "I presumed children's books were written by people who were white and dead," she says matter-of-factly. "As I was neither, it genuinely wasn't even a possibility in my consciousness."
Until her mid-30s, every story she wrote featured white characters. "I had so absorbed the idea that children like me didn't deserve to be in books and adults like me couldn't be authors that I didn't even question it," she says. Her perception shifted when she saw the 1999 BBC adaptation of Malorie Blackman's Pig-Heart Boy. "It was life-changing," she says. "For the first time I realised you could write about Black British people – she really helped me find my voice."
Impact and plans as laureate
As laureate, Lawrence hopes children from every background will recognise themselves in her appointment – not just Black children, but children from working-class families, fostered children, and anyone whose family lives don't fit traditional narratives. When she visits schools to talk about novels such as Needle and Indigo Donut, both of which feature children in foster care, pupils often wait behind to tell her their own stories. "There will always be children, Black or white, who come up and talk to me about their experiences," she says.
Her 2023 picture book Is That Your Mama?, inspired by strangers questioning whether her mixed-race son was really her child, continues to resonate. "So many people come up to me and talk to me about that book and say 'oh that happens to me, too'," she says. "I know that people feel validated and seen by the books I write, which is so important."
Addressing the literacy crisis
This year, the government launched the National Year of Reading to combat a crisis in literacy among children. According to the National Literacy Trust, only one in three eight- to 18-year-olds reported enjoying reading in their spare time last year – a 36% drop in two decades and the lowest level on record. Lawrence is careful to remain nuanced, warning against placing blame solely on parents. "We're living in a really difficult society at the moment," she says. "People are struggling with the cost of living, with work, with everything else."
She also argues that reading in schools has become too closely associated with assessment. "It's often about reading this book so you can identify the theme and write the essay," she says. "Reading becomes functional. The pleasure side is forgotten, that's what we need more of."
Despite the headlines, Lawrence is optimistic about children's reading habits. Almost every week she travels the country visiting schools, libraries, and children's book awards, where she encounters children who treat authors "like rock stars". "I walk into these events after horrible train journeys feeling exhausted," she says. "Then I meet all these young people who are passionate about books. It completely lifts my heart." "There are amazing things happening already," she continues. "I spend my life surrounded by children who are obsessed with books – I just don't think people always hear about them."
