Children’s Laureates for the National Year of Reading

Alison Lester and Boori Monty Pryor have been named as the first Australian Children’s Laureates. 

This is an initiative of the Australian Children’s Literature Alliance (ACLA) and has been established in Australia to promote the importance of reading following the successful implementation of Children’s Laureates in the UK and America.

Alison Lester is an award-winning author and illustrator. Over her twenty-one year career she has produced such classics as the Clive Eats Alligators series, Magic Beach, Imagine and My Farm, and recently she has also started writing novels, including The Quicksand Pony and the Bonnie and Sam series with Roland Harvey. Her picture book, Are We There Yet?, won the CBCA Picture Book of the Year Award in 2005, and Running with the Horseswas an Honour Book in the 2010 CBCA Book of the Year Awards and 2010 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.

Her picture books mix imaginary worlds with everyday life, encouraging children to believe in themselves and celebrate the differences that make them special. Alison is involved in many community art projects and spends part of every year travelling to remote Indigenous communities, using her books to help children and adults write and draw about their own lives.

Alison is also an ambassador for the National Year of Reading 2012. [Source : ACLA Children's Laureates page]

Boori Monty Pryor is a celebrated author, performer, dancer and poet.  Boori has worked in film, television, modeling, sport, music and theatre-in-education. He has written several award-winning books with Meme McDonald including Maybe Tomorrow, My Girragundji, The Binna Binna Man and Njunjul the Sun. His picture book collaboration with Jan Ormerod, Shake a Leg, won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Children’s Fiction in 2011.

Boori’s stories are about finding strength within to deal with the challenges without, and his skill is to create positive visions of the future for both Indigenous and all Australians. [Source : ACLA Children's Laureates page]

As the Children’s Laureates for the next two years, Alison and Boori will act as ambassadors for Australian children’s literature nationally and internationally.