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The new Children’s Laureate wants to get the country doodling. Anthony Browne, the illustrator and author, was announced as the successor to Michael Rosen at a ceremony in London today.

His distinctive and sophisticated visual style has already won him multiple awards, culminating in 2000 with the Hans Christian Andersen award, the highest honour for children’s illustration. He is the first Briton to win the prize.

Rosen, the relentlessly energetic author of We’re Going On A Bear Hunt, campaigned during his two-year term to encourage more children to read, making innumerable appearances at schools, literary festivals and in the media.

Browne said today that he would attempt to follow that example but would lay special emphasis on the appreciation of illustrated works.

“Picture books are special. They are not like anything else. The best ones leave a tantalising gap between the pictures — a gap that is filled by the reader’s imagination.”

He lamented the way that many parents try to wean their children off them, resulting in a much reduced visual imagination and awareness among most adults.

“These are not books to be left behind as we grow older. I would like to encourage the act of looking. I would like to encourage children and adults to learn the Shape Game.”

The Shape Game is a game that Browne played with his brother Michael when they were children. It involves one player drawing a random shape and the other then turning it into something, such as a face, a fried egg or a dinosaur.

“Children everywhere have invented their own versions,” he said.

To start the ball rolling he then asked his brother on to the stage for “an event that hasn’t happened in at least 50 years... to play the Shape Game with me”.

The new Children’s Laureate drew a blob and his brother swiftly transformed it into a weeping face.

“I hope to get the whole country playing,” Browne said. “All of us could draw when we were 5 or 6.

“It’s not about trying to make an impressive picture. It’s about communication.”

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