Laura Henry-Allain MBE is an award-winning storyteller, producer, and academic guide whose work has reworked kids’s media, from the beloved JoJo and Gran Gran to bestselling books and early years campaigns.
Her newest challenge, My Phrases, My E book, is a co-viewing podcast designed to re-ignite kids’s love of studying whereas supporting authors and communities usually ignored by conventional publishing routes. Right here, Laura shares the inspiration behind the sequence and the values that proceed to information her inventive journey.
Please introduce your self …
My identify is Laura Henry-Allain. I’m a storyteller, producer, educationalist and guide. That mentioned, I bear in mind what the late, nice Benjamin Zephaniah mentioned when he was requested an analogous query. His reply was, “You imply what am I doing in the present day?” and went on to clarify the West African time period griot, which suggests an individual going from village to village sharing information and tales. As on daily basis for me is completely different, I like the concept of utilizing the time period griot.
My mother and father got here to the UK from St Lucia within the Caribbean as a part of the Windrush technology. I used to be born in Paddington; London, W9, the place many St Lucians settled. The world was affectionally often known as, ‘Little St Lucia‘. After I was round two years previous, we moved to Ladbroke Grove, W10 residence of Notting Hill Carnival. I lived there for the remainder of my childhood and early maturity. I’ve since lived in south London for 28 years. I’ve two grown-up sons, who I’m extremely happy with. My eldest son is autistic.
Describe your life presently, in a single phrase or a sentence.
Positively busy.
Why are we right here?
To share particulars of my new co-viewing podcast for youngsters and adults, mother and father and academics: My Phrases, My E book.
Inform us about My Phrases, My E book podcast in your individual phrases.
My Phrases, My E book is an unique kids’s podcast geared toward supporting kids’s love of books and studying. The primary episode launched on World E book Day in March 2025. I draw by myself experience in schooling and creating content material for my kids’s books, media and tv. Analysis exhibits that there’s a nationwide decline in curiosity in books. I need to show that any little one can have enjoyable with books, no matter their background or state of affairs. My Phrases, My E book is offered to all kids, together with those that are residence educated, these attending college on-line and people who are in hospital. The fantastic thing about My Phrases, My E book is that kids can watch or pay attention at a time that’s appropriate for them and as many occasions as they like. My Phrases, My E book is an evergreen useful resource!.
You’ve created such sensible work for youngsters. Why was now the time for a podcast?
This comes at a time of nationwide decline in kids’s studying enjoyment in response to the Nationwide Literacy Belief. My Phrases, My E book options intimate writer interviews, providing kids distinctive insights into the inventive course of behind a few of their most beloved tales, and explaining what it’s prefer to be an writer.
The present options fiction and non-fiction and combines interviews with rising authors in addition to those that are well-known. It reaches kids throughout completely different platforms, podcast channels, YouTube and is linked to social media channels. Each episode of My Phrases, My E book consists of extension actions that promote steady studying and encourage hands-on engagement with the themes explored within the present. My Phrases, My E book additionally presents a platform to authors who would not have the attain or assets to advertise their books and serves the numerous faculties nationally and internationally that would not have the finances for writer visits. 4 charities will profit from books donated by authors: Fences and Frontiers, Grenada Group Library, Kinship, and the South Norwood Group Kitchen. On the finish of each season, there can be a chance to enter a contest to win a collection of the visitor writer books.
What’s your inventive or planning routine when beginning a brand new challenge like this?
Coordinating the authors diaries, my diary and the studio’s diary has been a problem. I’ve a beautiful digital PA, Juls, who has labored with me for 14 years and helps me with the operational facets of My Phrases, My E book.
What did you discover most difficult?
Not difficult, per se, however a studying curve. Initially I believed I may interview round six authors a day. Though the interviews are brief, the day could be very tiring. I now solely do three in sooner or later.
What did you take pleasure in or join with most simply?
Each single interview so far has been inspiring and there are such a lot of widespread themes with the authors.
Is there an episode or second from My Phrases, My E book that captures what the challenge means to you?
I interviewed Kelechi Okafor about her e-book Sturdy Like Me. We had been discussing id and Kelechi talked about when she got here to the UK from Nigeria and was informed to talk English somewhat than her first language. This deeply resonated with me. My mother and father converse St Lucian Creole and thought it greatest to not use their first language with me and my siblings. We all know that is about mother and father wanting their kids to slot in, however after we take a look at this on a deeper stage, my mother and father’ view was coming by means of a colonial lens. We all know from analysis that kids who converse two or much more languages are inclined to do higher academically. On my travels I encourage mother and father to talk their first language to their kids; their language is a part of their little one’s id and heritage.
The present additionally provides a platform to lesser-known authors and advantages numerous charities. Why was it necessary so that you can centre entry and neighborhood on this challenge?
It was crucial to me to offer rising authors a voice and is a part of my stance in ‘serving to others to cross‘ a time period that Tyler Perry makes use of. There are such a lot of authors, particularly Black authors, who battle to market their books to a wider viewers.
Concerning the charities, they’re all charities necessary to me, that I really feel don’t get the popularity and assist they want. Equally, all of them assist kids and households. I needed to ensure, regardless of the place a baby lives, or their circumstances, that they need to be capable of take pleasure in books and studying. Including, Tapestry, the net kids’s journal has created a free obtain instructional useful resource on the finish of each interview for youngsters to finish, which helps their studying.
You’ve mentioned dyslexia impacts your spelling, grammar and handwriting, however by no means your love of studying. What message does My Phrases, My E book ship to kids who may also really feel excluded by conventional studying buildings?
I imagine that My Phrases, My E book is necessary for all kids to hearken to. A number of of the authors I’ve interviewed are neurodivergent; autistic, ADHD and dyslexic, and equally there are characters of their books who’re neurodivergent. I’m additionally verbally dyslexic, the place I mispronounce phrases, which you’ll hear when listening to the podcast.When I’m at an writer go to or delivering a keynote, I share this with kids to indicate them that any incapacity or instructional want they might have mustn’t get in the way in which of what they need to do.
There was a variety of concern across the nationwide decline in kids’s studying enjoyment. What do you suppose is on the root of that, and the way can tasks like yours assist shift it?
It’s of main concern that many kids don’t learn for enjoyment, even just some occasions a 12 months. I feel there are a lot of causes for this, libraries are closing in some areas, kids’s display utilization has risen, the present curriculum doesn’t significantly rejoice or encourage kids studying for pleasure, and there must be extra assist for fogeys on the significance of early studying. I wrote a information for fogeys – The Early Years Studying Timeline. I’m additionally organising a free webinar for fogeys, educators, academics, librarians and publishers, titled It takes a village – How we will all assist kids’s studying of their Early Years and past Thursday twelfth June, 7:30 – 9:00BST. To e-book a spot, please e-mail: admin@laurahenryallain.com.
You’re additionally a best-selling writer, content material creator and guide working throughout media, schooling and publishing. How does My Phrases, My E book replicate the intersection of all these components of your profession?
My Phrases, My E book enhances all the opposite areas of my work. My background is in educating and I nonetheless ship keynotes and coaching on this space. All my tasks complement one another and I study and develop within the completely different areas of my work.
You’re the creator of JoJo and Gran Gran, the much-loved sequence that has had a big impression on UK kids’s tv. What has it meant to you to see the way in which kids, households and the broader trade have responded to it?
I’m nonetheless overwhelmed by the response that I obtain not simply within the UK, however globally. JoJo and Gran Gran, could be very private to me, and is predicated on the connection I had with my grandmother. My center identify is Josephine, therefore JoJo. For JoJo and Gran Gran to be the primary Black British animation is unbelievable. I really like receiving messages from kids, mother and father and grandparents on how a lot the present means to them. The JoJo and Gran Gran group are all the time delighted to obtain suggestions – so many individuals had been concerned in making the present.
What’s your tackle the present UK panorama for youngsters’s publishing and media made by and for Black creators and communities?
There are such a lot of gifted Black creators, however we all know from analysis by the Centre for Literacy in Main Training (CLPE) in its Survey of Ethnic Illustration inside UK Kids’s Literature, that 17% of kids’s books printed in 2023 featured a racially minoritised character, which is a dramatic decline from earlier years. Nonetheless, I’m positive the stats on who truly created the books is much less that 17%. We have to take a look at whether or not creators are utilizing their very own experiences to develop kids’s books that concentrate on Black characters. Additionally it is necessary to notice that Black creators are in a position to write not solely about Black characters and life, however are expert in writing throughout different genres together with sci-fi, fantasy, motion and journey, and many others.
Dr Rudine Bishop’s analysis Mirrors, Home windows and Sliding Doorways, highlights the advantages that numerous books can have for each little one, regardless of race or background. With mirrors, kids see themselves in a e-book; they observe the lives of others by means of a e-book’s home windows; and sliding doorways allow them to step into the e-book to study what’s completely different to them. We have to take a look at how books are commissioned, how they’re marketed and impactful methods to assist rising and present Black creators. To reply the numerous questions I obtain from those that are fascinated with making a kids’s e-book, I created Laura, How Do I? an annual free webinar, now in its third 12 months. To register, please e-mail: admin@laurahenryallain.com
GETTING TO KNOW YOU
If not this, then what? I might like to do a course in floristry, I really like flowers. I might like to
do that as a pastime, for household and buddies’ celebrations.
What’s made you unhappy, mad, and glad this week? Glad – I used to be the MC at a main college’s expertise present. It was superb to see such a various vary of kids showcasing their skills.
What are you watching? Perpetually, on Netflix.
What are you studying? Island Track by Pepsi Demacque-Crockett.
The final movie you watched? Sinners.
The final play you noticed? Shifters. That mentioned, Hamilton once more.
The final stay music occasion you attended? Carol Thompson and Janet Kay.
What’s presently in your music playlist? I Love Days Like This, Shaun Escoffery (correct summer season tune).
Which podcast(s) are you presently listening to? IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson.
What’s in your bucket listing? To go to Ghana particularly, and customarily extra travelling. I’ve been lucky to go to many international locations linked to my work.
The place’s your glad place? My residence.
Have fun another person, who’s doing nice work proper now? Trish Cooke, who deserves all of the flowers as a pioneer of kids’s books, that commemorate Black kids and their households.
Have fun your self; what are you happy with? Firstly, my sons. All of the books that I’ve written and JoJo and Gran Gran, which was the primary Black British animation.
What’s subsequent? The second e-book within the Maya and Marley sequence and extra of my books to be
printed. Fingers crossed my new animation sequence in growth, Daddio & Co, will go into manufacturing.
The place can we discover you? @LauraHAllain.
The place can we hearken to My Phrases, My E book? You’ll be able to watch on YouTube and pay attention on Apple and Spotify.