Review books: role models | disabled children | illustrators | Foundling museum | Jacqueline Wilson | Quentin Blake | support | campaign

Publications by New Journal Enterprises

Home

Archive

Competition

The Review - BOOKS
Published: 23 July 2009

Jacqueline Wilson

At last – role models for the disabled

THE lack of role models for partially-abled children in books has long been a scandal: children’s stories rarely feature characters who have disabilities or medical conditions.
And to help redress this balance, best-selling children’s author Dame Jacqueline Wilson is lending her support to the In The Picture campaign – a project to raise awareness of this shocking fact.
Set up by disability charity Scope, an exhibition of work by leading children’s illustrators such as Quentin Blake and Jane Ray giving disabled people their rightful presence in mainstream children’s books opens next Wednesday.
Jacqueline will launch the exhibition and as well as the artworks, there are displays of stories and artwork by children from across London.
She said: “When children peer at picture books they always look for a child they can identify with – a little girl with plaits, say, or a boy with a bike.
“It must be hard for a disabled child searching for someone who looks exactly like them. It’s wonderful that this exhibition of beautiful vibrant artwork puts all children in the picture, going about their normal happy everyday lives.
“It’s particularly heartening that the venue is the Foundling Museum , with its long history of caring for all children marginalised by society.”
And the writer has been inspired by her involvement with the Foundling Museum. Her latest book, called Hetty Feather due to be published in October, is about a girl who grows up in the Foundling Hospital and goes in search of her mother.
DAN CARRIER
• The exhibition will run from Wednesday July 29 until Sunday September 27 at
The Foundling Museum,
40 Brunswick Square, WC1

Comment on this article.
(You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)

Name:

Email:

Comment:

» A-Z Book titles