Summer Reading Challenge with Trish Cooke and Alex Wharton

Trish Cooke is a children’s author, playwright, and scriptwriter for TV, film and radio. Trish has authored over 20 children’s books, including So Much (Smarties Book Prize, the Kurt Maschler Award and the WH Smith & She Magazine Award; voted one of the 100 Best Children’s Books of All Time by BBC Culture and Time Out), The Magic Callaloo (shortlisted for the 2025 English 4–11 Picture Book Awards and also a recipient of the Gold Standard Selection in the Junior Library Guild), Tales from the Caribbean, King Kafu and the Moon and Full, Full, Full of Love. For the stage Trish created additional material for Alterations by Michael Abbensetts' which was at the National Theatre Lyttleton Theatre from 20 February to 5 April 2025. She has written several stage shows for the Theatre Royal Stratford East: Running Dream (published by Aurora Press, Six Plays by Black and Asian writers 1993); Gulp Fiction (1996) Anansi Trades Places for Talawa Theatre Company and nine Christmas shows for the Theatre Royal Stratford East since 2005 including: Cinderella (Olivier Award nominee 2007/8); Rapunzel (Great British Pantomime Award winner 2017/18) and Pinocchio (2024/25). Other plays include: Back Street Mammy (published by Nick Hern Books, First Run 2) for Temba at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1989 and for Leeds Playhouse in 1991; Left Hangin’ (published by Oberon Books, Black Lives, Black Words) at the Bush Theatre in 2015. TV writing includes scripts for: Doctors, EastEnders, The Real McCoy, The Tweenies, Pop Paper City, JoJo & Gran-Gran, Number One Newton Avenue and PlayDays (on which she was also a presenter). Radio drama scripts include: Single Plus One, Those Old Metal Things and the mini series Unspoken. She is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow, a founding board member and commissioning editor for WritersMosaic (a division of the Royal Literary Fund) and was on the board for the Society of Authors Scriptwriters Group Committee.

Alex Wharton is an award-winning poet, writer, author, performer and the Children's Laureate Wales 2023–2025. His first collection of poetry, Daydreams and Jellybeans (Firefly Press, 2020), was shortlisted for the Lollies laugh-out-loud poetry Award and the Wales Children’s Book of the Year. His second collection, Doughnuts, Thieves and Chimpanzees (Firefly Press, 2023), a lively ‘how to’ of poetry, rap, haiku and more, is nominated for the Yoto Carnegie Medal 2025. His third collection Red Sky at Night, Poet’s Delight was followed up exactly a year later in the mysterious, humorous, philosophical and charming companion volume Red Sky in the Morning, Poets’ Warning both illustrated by Ian Morris. His poem "The Gardener" caught the attention of Sir Lewis Hamilton who had Alex's poem embroidered on his Burberry suit at the Met Gala 2024. In 2024 Alex’s books were adapted by Ballet Cymru for a stage adaptation of Daydreams and Jellybeans.