A HOST OF international writers, as well as librarians, publishers, teachers, broadcasters and illustrators will converge on Dublin next month to let in the light on children's books. This illuminating affair is the seventh summer school on children's literature - entitled, as it happens, Letting in the Light.
Among the speakers will be poet Benjamin Zephaniah, born in England and partly raised in Jamaica, who was removed from school when he was 12 and considered "a born failure" by his teachers. His first book was published in 1980 and his first collection of poetry for children, Talking Turkeys, was published in 1994.
The summer school will also be addressed by Cypriot writer Janni Howker, who has family roots in Lancashire. From Britain, Melvin Burgess - whose latest novel, Junk, about young people and drugs, has just won the Guardian Children's Fiction Award - will also be present. Amongst the best known Irish writers taking part are Don Conroy and Aine Ni Ghlinn.
The school will be held at the Irish Writers' Centre in Parnell Square, Dublin, over three days to discuss a range of issues connected with literature for young people.
The event has been organised by Children's Books Ireland, which was formed earlier this year (through the merger of the Children's Literature Association of Ireland and the Irish Children's Book Trust) in response to an unprecedented growth over the past five years in writing and publishing for young people in Ireland.
"Nobody is quite sure why this has happened, but Ireland has suddenly come into its own," says Marilyn Taylor, PRO of Children's Books Ireland. In the past Irish children were reading about American teenagers and Australian teenagers, with very little about Irish teenagers on offer. "There wasn't enough there that they could identify with," she explains. This has changed in the recent past with "a kind of renaissance in Irish writing". Irish publishers have played a big part in this change, she adds.
The main aim of CBI is to celebrate children's books and to foster and encourage reading among children and young people. The CBI group, which already has over 600 members in Ireland and abroad, hopes to promote the role of children's books through homes, schools and the media.
It also hopes to develop a range of local activities around Ireland and to campaign to improve the availability of books for all children, especially the less privileged.
CBI also wants to act as a national lobbying body on issues involving children's books and to forge links with international children's literature bodies.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)