Ursula Dubosarsky 2020-2021 Australian Children's Laureate

Image Source Boomerang Books

2020-2021 Australian Children's Laureate - Ursula Dubosarsky

Here are all the past posts where I have talked about Ursula's books. You can see all her titles on her web site.

Honey and Bear illustrated by Ron Brooks

Jerry illustrated by Patricia Mullins

The Blue Cat

Brindabella illustrated by Andrew Joyner

Little Wars in the anthology The Great War

Leaf Stone Beetle illustrated by Gaye Chapman

Ava Adds illustrated by Annie White

Too Many elephants in this house illustrated by Andrew Joyner

The deep end illustrated by Mitch Vane

Ursula's PhD thesis is titled Post-war place and displacement in Rumer Godden's "The Doll's house" and Mary Norton's "The Borrowers". This really intrigues me because I have been a huge fan of Rumer Godden since I was a little child and the life of those tiny borrowers and their adaption of found objects to make a life under a human house continues to intrigue me.

Take a look at this interview with Ursula from 2014 by Boomerang books and another very recent one with Megan Daley.

I am so excited to report that the theme or focus for Ursula's period as our Children's books Laureate:

Read For Your Life

Here are two quotes from the Sydney Morning Herald today

"... recognising that reading often drops off after primary school and needs to be developed as a lifelong habit. "Sophisticated reading is a dying art, that's the sad possibility," she said."

"Libraries are not just sources of information, they are sources of the imagination," she said. "A library symbolises a space where you would come in and know that reading is important, and you would hope that in a school that is what they think."

Here is some information about the Australian Children's Laureate Foundation

The ACLF’s mission is to:

• to promote the value and importance of reading
• to raise the profile of books in the lives of Australian children and young adults
• to respond to identified needs and issues in the Childrens' & Youth Literature national landscape
• to champion the cause of Young Australians' reading in a consultative, collegial and inclusive way within a cultural framework that showcases the best of Australian Literature for young people
• to undertake selected national projects that will promote these objects nationally

Along with the books I mentioned above here are some picture books by Ursula that you should find in nearly all Primary school library collections:

I also love the series of Aussie Nibbles about Becky - there are six titles - my favourite to read aloud is Fairy Bread. The other titles are The Deep End, Two Gorillas, The Cubby House, The Puppet Show and The Magic Wand.

Here is a very new book by Ursula with joyous illustrations by Andrew Joyner:

Huge congratulations to Ursula Dubosarsky on her new role. I am looking forward to two wonderful years of discussion about the importance of children's books; events involving children and books; and of course advocacy for school libraries!

At the end of February the wonderful NSW School Magazine will publish a new book all about the work of Ursula Dubosarsky - Tales of all Kinds.