Waterstones Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell launches Creativity Summer Camp with all-star line-up: 6 – 10 July 2020

Featuring…

Dapo Adeola | David Almond | Allen Fatimaharan | Liz Pichon | Chris Riddell | Marta Altés | Rob Biddulph | Sarah McIntyre | Nadia Shireen | Joseph Coelho | Laura Dockrill | Theresa Lola | Joshua Seigal | Eoin Colfer | Frank Cottrell Boyce | Sharna Jackson | Zanib Mian | Onjali Raúf | Francesca Simon + International Children’s Laureates: Jason Reynolds | Eloise Williams | Áine Ní Ghlinn | Ursula Dubosarsky | Manon Sikkel

Waterstones Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell and the best-selling author illustrator of the How to Train Your Dragon and Wizards of Once series, has today announced a week of ‘Summer Camp’ activity celebrating children’s innate creativity and showcasing the enormous wealth of talent across the UK.

After a term of unparalleled disruption to children’s education, Cressida’s Creativity Summer Camp will inspire families to embrace books, reading and creativity at home over the summer holidays for entertainment, learning, as well as to support mental well-being.

Cressida will be joined by an all-star line-up of leading authors and illustrators – including Eoin Colfer, Theresa Lola and Rob Biddulph – to encourage young creatives with writing workshops, drawing masterclasses and much more.

Marking Cressida Cowell’s one year anniversary as the Waterstones Children’s Laureate, Summer Camp opens it virtual doors on Monday 6 July with Liz Pichon, David Almond, Dapo Adeola, Chris Riddell and Allen Fatimaharan sharing the tips and tricks behind their creative process, accompanied by an online exhibition of work-in-progress notebooks belonging to former Laureates Lauren Child, Michael Morpurgo and Anne Fine alongside Candy Gourlay, Yasmeen Ismail,  Jim Field, Jackie Morris and many more, that reveal how their much-loved stories came to life.

This also marks the official launch of Cressida’s ‘Laureate Gallery’ on www.childrenslaureate.org.uk where children will be able to exhibit their own work throughout Cressida’s time as Laureate, in a showcase of creativity and imagination.

Throughout the week, Cressida’s Creativity Summer Camp will be celebrating poetry, drawing, reading and writing, culminating in an event on Friday 10 July with Cressida, Onjali Raúf and Frank Cottrell Boyce answering creativity questions submitted by children throughout the week using the hashtag #CressidaSummerCamp.

Cressida Cowell, Waterstones Children’s Laureate, said:

“Every child deserves the right to be creative. Every child has the potential to be magically creative if they are inspired and encouraged. Ensuring that children are given this opportunity has been a passion of mine for many years; it is at the heart of my time as Waterstones Children’s Laureate and my Reading Charter, and it has never been more important than now, given the huge disruption that children have faced over the pandemic.

Creative thinking and creative confidence nurture essential benefits for everything we do: vital to all careers, to societal development and the building of empathy, and, of utmost importance now, in providing solace and supporting our own mental wellbeing and personal growth.

I hope that my Summer Camp can bring the benefits of creativity to children all over the UK, as well as showcase a vital part of the UK’s creative sector – which was growing at five times the rate of the wider economy pre lockdown – at a time when our cultural future faces great uncertainty.”