It was a very exciting day on Monday 4th July as Shropshire Bookfest travelled down to London to be part of the invited audience of literacy organisations, charitable trusts, children’s authors and publishers at the ceremony to announce the 12th Waterstones Children’s Laureate 2022-2024.

Award-winning performance poet, playwright and children’s author Joseph Coelho was presented with the bespoke silver Laureate medal by outgoing Waterstones Children’s Laureate, Cressida Cowell MBE.

Coelho’s laureateship will focus on three major projects, including Poetry Prompts, a campaign to make the writing and reading of poetry accessible to everyone. Coelho said there was “a lot of baggage with poetry”, with adults and children often feeling poetry was something “done to them”, and that there was “a right and a wrong way, and a correct way of analysing a poem”.

“I’m all for analysing poetry, but we tend to miss out on writing poetry, and realising poetry is for everyone,” said Coelho. “And as soon as you write poetry and realise that your voice is valid, then that opens up the world of poetry and makes you more interested in reading other poets.”