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The winner of one of the most prestigious prizes in children's literature has lambasted the Government for closing libraries.
Patrick Ness, 40, from Bromley, used his winner's speech at yesterday's CILIP Carnegie Medal ceremony to condemn the "hypocrisy" of ministers supporting the Evening Standard's literacy campaign while making it more difficult for children to read.
Singling out Education Secretary Michael Gove, Ness said: "Here is a man who races to the latest news about what a tragedy it is that three out of 10 children don't own a book. Yet he utterly fails to see the irony of how closing libraries will affect not only the three who don't but the seven who do and who would like to read more and more and more."
Ness, who won the award for Monsters of Men, the third and final instalment in his Chaos Walking trilogy, emphasised the vital role played by librarians in encouraging children to discover books.
He said: "We must accept that it is not only libraries that are under threat but librarians as well. Librarians open up the world. Knowledge is useless if you don't even know where to begin to look.
"How much more can you discover when someone can point you in the right direction ... to places you may not have even thought you were allowed to go."
Reader views (3)
But where do local councils get most of their money from? That's right. Central Government.
- James Miller, London, 25/06/2011 13:25
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Labour-led Waltham Forest was closing libraries long before the cuts, and destroyed tens of thousands of valuable books when the central library closed for renovation a few years ago. The libraries manager has no librarianship qualification, and as a result an outside consultant had to be paid tens of thousands in a book-choosing exercise (that's choosing, not buying) to make good the defect. Now a 35% cut in the libraries budget is proposed, while Councillors imposed a 5% cut in their own allowances, having voted themselves a 25% increase the previous term.
I'm no fan of this government, but Councils have choices, and they're making bad ones, sometimes with relish, in order to score a political point.
Did Mr Ness make any protests about library closure before the elections? He had ample opportunity: he only has to read Private Eye to keep himself informed on the subject.
- mdj e10, london uk, 24/06/2011 18:19
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i thought that local councils are closing libaries or am i wrong?
- tony crotty, romford, 24/06/2011 16:19
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