Laureate na nÓg Patricia Forde: ‘For a country that prides itself on our storytellers and our books and our literature, it is heartbreaking to think that we might cut these children off from that thread’

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Patricia Forde

When Galway-born children’s author Patricia Forde was revealed as the seventh Laureate na nÓg (Ireland’s Children’s Literature Laureate) in May 2023, she announced that the theme of her tenure would be “samhlaigh samhlaigh [imagine imagine] – making it up as we go along”. “I wanted to encourage wild creativity among children, because I did feel a lot of things to do with creativity and books had become very school-based,” Forde explains.

Her first project as laureate was the Whole Wild World Bus Tour, where she and 36 other children’s creatives travelled along Ireland’s west coast, bringing books and storytelling to hundreds of children. The tour also gave Forde a sense of community. “When you’re a writer, because you spend so much time on your own, it can be hard sometimes to feel that you belong to a group. I got great strength and optimism from being with that gang of people.” In fact, she praises the support that Irish children’s writers and illustrators have offered throughout her laureateship. “You couldn’t do this on your own. People have to rally behind you, and they did, and they continue to.”

In addition to the tour, Forde has spent the past couple of years visiting schools and speaking at conferences. “The crisis now in children’s reading has to be addressed, so I do a lot of talking to librarians and teachers, trying to encourage people to remain optimistic and to be sure that we can get through this, and we will.” A report from Children’s Books Ireland published this July found that while 5% of children in Ireland aged five to 12 do not read for pleasure, this rises to 24% among teenagers. Forde says: “For a country that prides itself on our storytellers and our books and our literature, it is heartbreaking to think that we might cut these children off from that thread.”

She would like to see more investment in Ireland’s school libraries. “Of course, we know that books are a great leveller… And what is sad is that I don’t think children can become readers without the help of the adults in their lives, so we need to focus on that.” Drawing on her own experience as a former primary school teacher, she says: “When you’re teaching, you’re worried about decoding, but the other side to reading is to grow a child who sees the value in stories, who wants to be somebody else for a while.” She continues: “It hurts me to think that there will be children who never have experienced that. They only have one life, the life they’re living. In this mad world we’re in we all need shelter and I think books are the greatest shelter.”

She also laments the lack of media coverage for children’s books as well as calling for more author events to help books compete with other forms of entertainment, recalling the impact of the bus tour on the children they visited. “To them, writing and writers were something exotic. When they met them in the flesh, it really made a difference.” Another effort to inspire kids is her new book, Making It Up as You Go Along: A Children’s Guide to Writing Stories, produced with illustrator Mary Murphy. It features letters from 12 of Ireland’s best-known middle-grade writers, including Eoin Colfer, Derek Landy and Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick, sharing their writing tips and tricks. Forde explains the thinking behind the book: “I felt there was a gap for kids and for teachers as well in how to help them to go about writing in a way that would free them. I tried to make it fun.”

Laureate na nÓg is an initiative of the Arts Council that is managed and delivered by charity and arts organisation Children’s Books Ireland (Forde refers to CBI’s Ruth Ní Eidhin as her “right-hand woman throughout”). Though she was notified about being shortlisted for the role, when she received a phone call in January 2023 to confirm she had been selected, she was “genuinely so shocked and thrilled as well”. She adds: “The idea of doing something for your country, for your family, for your community, being an ambassador for books and reading – which I felt so strongly about anyway – was just wonderful.”

She describes her time as laureate so far as “really good fun”. Highlights have included talking to the UK’s Waterstones Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce at last year’s Youth Libraries Group Conference and a conversation with several international children’s laureates at Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Before she hands the baton on to her successor next May, she hopes to visit Northern Ireland and to attend Irish-language festival Oireachtas na Samhna. She says: “I love writing in Irish. Again, it’s a great community… And I thought it was an important part of being the laureate – that we encourage people to read in Irish. Because our children learn to speak Irish in school, but parents don’t always think of putting an Irish-language book in their hands. And we’ve got some fabulous Irish-language books at the moment.”

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Considering how she decides whether to write a project in Irish or English, she says: “It’s always fascinating, but somehow the ideas come to you in one language or the other.” She speaks of the joy of having her Irish-language books translated, fondly remembering a visit to a festival in Beijing where she saw children with copies of one of her most popular Irish picture books Mise Agus an Dragun (Dragon Hunter). “I thought it incredible, that I wrote that at my desk in the west of Ireland, in Irish – a minority language even here – and here they are in Beijing reading it.”

Forde feels that more should be done to support Irish writers, referencing the Discover Irish Kids Books campaign launched by children’s author and bookseller Sarah Webb. “Parents walk into shops and they’re bombarded by the big names and, as a result, it can be very difficult for Irish writers to actually get themselves in front of Irish children. And I think we need to do more. It’s like your diet – our children need a variety. They need to hear different voices, different stories.”

On the subject of stories, she has understandably been “distracted” from her own writing over the past couple of years but took some time off over the summer and spent it “writing like a robot trying to catch up”. Next May, she is releasing a picture book with Puffin called The Island of the Bees, which is illustrated by “old friend” Paddy Donnelly, and she has also been working on a book of 100 stories told in 100 words for Dublin-based indie Little Island Books. Having previously written for film and television, she would like to do more of this once her tenure is finished.

However, she is not quite ready to move on from her position just yet. “I feel I’m only here for this short time. I don’t want to leave anything on the field. I want to finish saying I did my utmost, I spent every bit of energy I had. That would be great if I could say that at the end, I think I’d be really happy then.” Reflecting on her tenure so far, she confesses: “I was surprised at the warmth people feel towards the laureate… In Ireland, we still value writers and storytellers, and that hasn’t changed.”