The RSL is taking bookings from Members and Fellows only. Public tickets are available from the British Library website.

Is a rebel someone who resists authority, and sometimes convention too, or someone who stands up for their beliefs? As children’s books from the last 200 years have shown, rebels come in all shapes and sizes – from Oliver Twist to Tracy Beaker, from Matilda to Sephy. In this Literature Matters event, we celebrate the British Library’s exhibition on rebels in children’s literature with former Children’s Laureate, Malorie Blackman. She reflects on her writing career and how her work has been adapted into graphic fiction, plays and TV series. Malorie Blackman has written over fifty books and is acknowledged as one of today’s most imaginative and convincing writers for young readers. She has been awarded numerous prizes for her work, including the Red House Children’s Book Award and the Fantastic Fiction Award. She has also been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. In 2005, she was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her contribution to children’s books, and in 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children’s literature. She was Children’s Laureate from 2013 to 2015 and has been described by The Times as ‘a national treasure’.

Malorie is joined by poet, performer and playwright Sabrina Mahfouz, whose stage adaptation of Noughts and Crosses was performed at Theatre Royal Stratford East in Spring 2019 and Nathaniel Price who is one of the script writers of the highly anticipated TV adaptation of Noughts and Crosses, due to premiere on the BBC later this year. Writer, literary critic and broadcaster Nicolette Jones, who has been children's book reviewer of The Sunday Times for more than two decades, will chair the discussion.