2019 Guest Judges

The 2019 Little Rebels judges are Darren Chetty, Shaun Dellenty, Emily Drabble, B.J. Epstein and Patrice Lawrence.

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

B. J. Epstein

B.J. Epstein is a senior lecturer in literature and public engagement at the University of East Anglia, where she specialises in children’s literature. She’s also a writer, editor, and Swedish-to-English translator. She is the author of Are the Kids All Right? The Representation of LGBTQ Characters in Children’s and Young Adult Lit; Translating Expressive Language in Children’s Literature; and Ready, Set, Teach!; the editor of two books on translation in the Nordic countries and co-editor of a forthcoming book on queer and/in translation; and the translator or writer of many other essays, articles, short stories, and other texts. B.J. can be reached through www.awaywithwords.se. @BJEpstein

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