Waterstones Children’s Laureate (2022-2024), Joseph Coelho, will visit Jubilee Crescent Library on Friday 14 April as part of his nationwide ‘Library Marathon’
He is championing local libraries and the vital role they play within the community and inspiring a love of reading in young people.
This epic mission will see the award-winning performance poet, playwright, and children’s author visit and join a library in every local authority in the UK – more than 200 libraries in total – with the aim of encouraging people, young and old, to join their local library:
Coelho’s ambitious ‘Library Marathon’ began prior to his appointment as the foremost representative of children’s literature, the Waterstones Children’s Laureate, and was put on hold due to the Covid pandemic. Now Joseph – who is acclaimed for his work including the Luna Loves picture books, middle grade series Fairy Tales Gone Bad, YA verse novel The Girl Who Became a Tree, as well as poetry collections for all ages including Overheard in a Tower Block and Poems Aloud – is set to complete his campaign by putting library advocacy at the heart of his laureateship.
So far, Coelho has visited 160 libraries. At his visit to Jubilee Crescent Library on 14 April at 10:30am he will register for a library card, borrow a book, as well as reading to and performing for the children in the library.
The ‘Library Marathon’ is one of three major initiatives announced by the current Waterstones Children’s Laureate, which is managed by BookTrust, the UK’s largest children’s reading charity, as part of his two year tenure. Coelho’s other campaigns include the ‘Poetry Prompts’ weekly online series, which celebrates the power of poetry in all its forms, and ‘Bookmaker Like You’, which aims to showcase a diversity of new talent within the book industry so that every child can see themselves as a bookmaker.
The ‘Library Marathon’ will culminate in a special, public event at the British Library in October to mark National Libraries Week 2023.