2021 guest judges
The 2021 Little Rebels judges are Darren Chetty, Shaun Dellenty, Emily Drabble, Patrice Lawrence and Jim MacSweeney.
Darren Chetty
Darren Chetty is a Teaching Fellow at University College London. He was a contributor to The Good Immigrant, and co-author, with Jeffrey Boakye, of What Is Masculinity? Why Does It Matter? And Other Big Questions. He writes, with Karen Sands O’Connor, a regular column for Books for Keeps on the representation of ‘BAME’ people in children’s literature. Darren wrote the foreword to A Change is Gonna Come, and has been a judge on the YA Book Prize, Blue Peter Book Awards, and the Little Rebels Prize. Darren is a member of the Steering Group for the CLPE Reflecting Realities survey and the advisory panel Advisory Panel for the 2019 Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards. @rapclassroom
Shaun Dellenty
Shaun Dellenty is an educator, writer and award-winning advocate for LGBT+ inclusion in education and communities. He is the author of the forthcoming book Celebrating Difference: A whole school approach to LGBT+ inclusion, which examines the roots and impact of identity-based prejudice in schools, and is based on Shaun’s award-winning schools training programme Inclusion for All. @ShaunDellenty
Emily Drabble
Emily Drabble is head of children’s book promotion and prizes at BookTrust; she was formerly co-editor of the Guardian children’s book site, and a contributing editor to the Guardian teacher network. @EmilyDrabs
Patrice Lawrence
Patrice Lawrence is a YA author; her YA debut, Orangeboy was the winner of both the YA Book Prize and the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize Category for Older Fiction; her most recent work is Indigo Donut; she has worked for over 20 years in social justice groups (including the National Children’s Bureau). @LawrencePatrice
Jim MacSweeney
Jim MacSweeney is the manager of Gay’s The Word, an LGBT bookshop which celebrated it’s 40th anniversary in 2019. Originally from Ireland, he worked with the Minority Rights Group before joining Gay’s The Word in 1989. Gay’s The Word is a longstanding member of the Alliance of Radical Booksellers.