Black History Month Famous Black Authors for Children

Black History Month Famous Black Authors for Children Benjamin Zephaniah Malorie Blackman

Malorie Blackman A prolific and successful writer for young adults. . . Malorie Blackman was born in London in 1962, and has spent most of her life there. She went to Honor Oak Grammar School and then went to Huddersfield where she undertook a course in business studies. She qualified in Computer Science and followed a successful career in computing, before becoming a writer at the age of 28. Her first published book was ‘Not So Stupid’ (1990), a book of short stories. Since then she has written many books and scripts, and her popularity has steadily grown. Her scripts for television include several episodes of Byker Grove, Whizziwig and Pig. Heart Boy, and she has also written original dramas for CITV and BBC Education. Her stage play, The Amazing Birthday, was performed in 2002.

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Benjamin Zephaniah Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah is a British Jamaican Rastafarian writer and dub poet. He is a well-known figure in contemporary English literature, and was included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008. Benjamin Zephaniah became a very successful children's poet with his first book of poetry for children called Talking Turkeys which had to go into an emergency reprint after just six weeks. In 1999 he wrote an immensely successful novel for teenagers, Face, the first of four novels to date.

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Theo Walcott Theo James Walcott (born 16 March 1989) is an English footballer who plays as a forward for Arsenal and the England national team. Walcott won the BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year Award in 2006. On 30 May 2006, Walcott became England's youngest ever senior football player aged 17 years and 75 days. On 6 th September 2008, he made his first competitive start in a World Cup qualifier against Andorra, and in the following match against Croatia on the 10 th September he opened his senior international goals tally and became the youngest player in history to score a hat-trick for England. He has represented England at the 2006 World Cup and Euro 2012 and has 31 caps, scoring four goals.

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Mildred Taylor Mildred Delois Taylor is a famous author, known for her children's fiction books. She comes from a family of storytellers. The family storytellers recollected accounts of struggles with severe racism in the South, tragedies and triumphs; humorous yarns were told and many of the stories were about surviving and the African-American family keeping their dignity in a racist culture. Mildred went to the University of Colorado. Her saga about the Logan family is really based on her whole family history. For example, it starts out with The Land, which is based on the stories she heard about her great-grandfather, who was the son of a white plantation owner and a black woman in Alabama and how he purchased land in Mississippi.

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John Agard Playwright, poet, short-story and children's writer John Agard was born on 21 June 1949 in British Guiana (now Guyana). He worked for the Guyana Sunday Chronicle newspaper as sub-editor and feature writer before moving to England in 1977, where he became a touring lecturer for the Commonwealth Institute, travelling to schools throughout the UK to promote a better understanding of Caribbean culture. In 1993 he was appointed Writer in Residence at the South Bank Centre, London, and became Poet in Residence at the BBC in London, an appointment created as part of a scheme run by the Poetry Society in London. He also played a key role in the 'Windrush' season of programmes in 1998. He won the Paul Hamlyn Award for Poetry in 1997 and has travelled extensively throughout the world performing his poetry.

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Valerie Bloom was born in Jamaica and came to England in 1979. She studied English with African and Caribbean Studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury. She writes poetry in English and Jamaican patois for all ages, and has performed her work throughout the world, with many television and radio appearances. Her poetry is included in a number of anthologies and she tutors regularly for schools and colleges.

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