KS1 Black British History: Malorie Blackman

Hi, I'm Nigel, and you may know me from the television. As you can see, I'm black. I was born and grew up in this country, the United Kingdom, but my parents were born and grew up in the Caribbean. My mum, dad, aunts and uncles moved here from a Caribbean country called Guyana many years ago.

There are over two million black people just like me living here in the UK, and many of us who moved here long ago, and who live here now, have worked really hard to make a difference to the lives of people that live here.

This is the story of just one of them - the amazing author Malorie Blackman.

Malorie has written more than 60 books for children and has won many awards for her work. She also writes for TV shows like Doctor Who. Her most famous story is called Noughts and Crosses.

Malorie's parents moved to the UK from the Caribbean island of Barbados. She was born in London in 1962, not far from where I am right now, and she's one of five children.

As a child Malorie says she'd like to daydream about her favourite stories and fairy tales. Malorie loved reading, and by the time she was 11 she had read all the books in the children's section at her local library!

She said she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up, but when she finished studying at college and school, she found a job working with computers. She worked as a programmer, which means she was really good at computer coding.

In her spare time Malorie wrote her first book for children, which was called Not So Stupid.

Once she finished writing it she had to find someone called a publisher to turn her story into an actual book you can buy in shops.

It was a difficult time because Malorie couldn't find anyone who wanted to turn her story into a book. The book was turned down many times, but Malorie kept on trying. She said to herself: 'I will never give up'.

She was 28 when she finally found a publisher who loved her story and helped her to get it into the shops. And that's when Malorie was able to start writing all the time.

Malorie's next two books were called Trust Me and Hacker. In Hacker she drew on her love of computers to tell the story of a young girl who helps her dad, who has been wrongly accused of breaking the law.

Then she wrote a story called Faith about a boy who travels into the future and Pig Heart Boy about a boy who needs a new heart, which won lots of awards.

In 2001, Mallory started writing her most famous book, Noughts and Crosses. It's become one of the most popular books for young people in the country and has even been made into a TV series. Perhaps you'll read the book when you're older.

Once Malorie had become famous, she started to help other writers from many different places to tell their own stories.

In 2008 Malorie was given a special award called an OBE, so that everyone would know just how important her work is to so many people living in this country. The award was given by the royal family.

In 2021 the final part of Malorie's Noughts and Crosses series was released, called Endgame. It marked 20 years since the first instalment and once again showed that Malorie is one of the most important British writers alive.

(Recap) Malorie Blackman's parents came to the UK from Barbados. As a young girl she loved stories and reading and in her spare time she started to write. Now she's written over 60 books aimed at children and young adults that are loved all over the world. But the best thing about Malorie Blackman is that she still has stories to tell!