Children’s Laureate Returns to School
Report by Senya, Many and Nuuh, Year 9 Media Club Students
Children’s Author and Illustrator Chris Riddell visited ARK Putney Academy to show primary school children from across the London Borough of Culture his incredible work and to encourage a love of reading.
In partnership with MacMillan and Waterstones, Year 3, 4 and 5 pupils from Wandsworth primary schools watched the celebrated children’s author creating live drawings, while revealing what motivated him to read and draw at a young age. He also gave the children tips on how to write a good story and spoke about his new book A Mermaid's Diary.
Chris Riddell is a writer, illustrator and cartoonist and was appointed Waterstones’ Children’s Laureate 2015-2017. As well known for his own fiction for children, including the Ottoline, Goth Girl and The Edge Chronicles series, and for his many successful collaborative works, Chris Riddell is a tireless champion of reading and illustration in the modern age. He has won many awards for his work, including the Nestlé Gold Award, the UNESCO Award for Something Else and the rare honour of three Kate Greenaway Medals.
Chris likes to take inspiration from his own life and how much he enjoys people watching. He shared how on the train he pretends to look out of the window, so people don’t see that he is looking at them. He told us that if he does look at them it gets a little awkward and when he asks to draw them, he sometimes gets weird looks!
His drawings are really detailed, showing how talented he is and even though they are in black and white you could imagine all the colours which would bring his art to life.
Later we got to interview Chris, and he told us about many things like how his love for drawing began as a child because he was allowed to draw through his Dads sermons, his greatest achievement was getting a gold Blue Peter badge and how his favourite character in his books is Mr Munroe.