At THE START of 2007, a small group of Philippa Pearce’s friends, family and colleagues began organising a series of memorial lectures. These lectures are to be spread over five years, and will be delivered by various distinguished speakers with an interest in children’s books. Some of the speakers may be authors themselves; all, from their different perspectives, will provoke thought. In this way and in Philippa Pearce's honour, we seek to acknowledge and understand excellence in writing for children, and to emphasize its continuing vital importance.
The inaugural lecture was held on 11th September 2008, at Homerton College, Cambridge, and focused on Philippa Pearce ’s own writing and contribution to children’s liturature. Subsequent lectures will range more widely, over the works of others, but will tend to reflect her own wide-ranging literary interests in, for example, the short story, the ghost story, the picture book and, of course, the novel.
The second lecture in the series will be given by Michael Rosen. Details of this lecture, and information about the 2008 event can be found elsewhere on this site.
For directions to Homerton and other details, you can visit the college's website: www.homerton.cam.ac.uk Also, the following links will provide you with PDFs of the locality and of the college grounds:
Map of Homerton campus (pdf, 220k)
Map of Cambridge showing Homerton College (pdf, 320k)