Impressions
Kimaya Garg
Malorie Blackman is one of the most celebrated children’s authors in Britain. Aged 54, she has written a vast number of books and short stories. Adding to this she also writes television drama aimed at children and young adults. She has won a number of awards for her eminent work and contribution to English literature.
Born to Caribbean parents, Malorie Blackman shapes her literature to tell stories about racism and create awareness about social and ethical issues. She adds a twist to many books like her series ‘noughts and crosses’ displaying social issues in a parallel universe. Displaying these issues through her stories creates a whole new level of social awareness amongst children.
When reading one of her books the reader is shifted into the thoughts of the characters: they are allowed to explore the characters thoughts as if their own, avidly connecting to the book. Malorie Blackman has won an outstanding number of awards for her books. I felt the intense connection to Lydia, a character in Thief. She has won the Excelle/Write Thing Children’s Author of the Year Award, the Children’s Book Circle’s Eleanor Farjeon Award and the Kitschies Black Tentacle for “outstanding achievement in encouraging and elevating the conversation around genre literature.
This demonstrates her capability to write effectively with such simplicity in her language that children can understand it yet it having such complexity in the effect her prose has on the reader.
Alongside the awareness that her narratives and novels bring, her language is what makes her books so popular, leaving the hundreds of children that read her books inspired and eager to stand up to social issues. Turning her pen into a sword against racism and bullying, she has made a great contribution to English literature for many generations of eager readers to come.