Morag Styles, Professor of Children’s Poetry, University of Cambridge died on December 29th2024 and UKLA mourns her loss and celebrates her contribution to children’s literature.
Memories of Morag brought together by Eve Bearne
In the mid 1980s Morag introduced me to UKLA (then UKRA). She was part of what was then – and has remained – an active group of members mostly based in Homerton College, Cambridge and now the Faculty of Education. I then became a member of her Language Team and we worked together for over 20 years. She was innovative, forward thinking and inspired all of us who worked with her to promote the study and love of children’s literature. A group of UKLA members who also knew her have offered their memories of this multi-faceted, warm, witty and wise woman – as teacher, colleague, writer and friend.
Teresa Cremin was her student:
Morag Styles was my completely inspirational PGCE English tutor at Cambridge. My plan was to train, teach for three years and then do an MEd in Educational Psychology, but Morag rekindled my love of literature, helped me fall in love with teaching English and so I changed direction. In our first session she read Where the Wild Things are by Maurice Sendak and then left the room! We weren’t sure if she was going to return but began to talk about our childhood favourites and to connect to another- just as Morag intended. Later, she treated us to lyrical readings of Michael Rosen’s work and shared her remarkable knowledge and passion for children’s literature. Morag always treated us as readers and read aloud wonderfully to us, not just poetry, but picture fiction and novels and she introduced us to authors, many of whom came to visit and lead workshops. During that ITE year, I was privileged to meet Sandy and Alan Brownjohn, Jill Paton Walsh, Philippa Pearce, Adrian Mitchell, John Agard, Kevin Crossley Holland and Bernard Ashley. I also spent my Saturday mornings with her in the poetry club she ran for local children. A remarkable role model, Morag unquestionably shaped my teaching career as no doubt she did countless others. Years later I ran Books Alive Festivals, studied children’s poetry for my MA in Language and Literature, became an ITE lecturer, and even an External Examiner on the Cambridge course.
Always colourful in her dress herself, and very keen on shoes, I remember Morag commenting on my shoes as I like to wear high heels with bright colours! I was so fortunate to have known her, I learnt so much from her. What a woman – what a loss.
Margaret Mackey reminds us of Morag’s great talent for bringing people together:
Whether marshalling a group of colleagues on an outing to the theatre, or masterminding a large international conference accompanied by a full-blown exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Morag Styles brought an inimitable social spirit and enthusiasm to the table. Her instincts were inclusive and her organizing energy at times seemed unstoppable.
Morag was a champion of poetry for children, both locally and internationally, and it was a cause that offered a full challenge for her many talents. She also advocated both for picture books and for the children who read them. Her list of publications is prodigious; my bookcase features a whole section for books connected to Homerton College and Morag features as an author and/or editor in most of them. She also edited poetry for children, and she carried a variety of teaching and administrative responsibilities. She did not hesitate to extend this workload if it would benefit the broader world of children’s literature – as in, for example, Homerton’s sponsorship of the Philippa Pearce lecture series, of which she was immensely proud.
Morag’s public persona was dynamic, productive, and larger-than-life. She also had a rich personal life. She was a loving mother and sister, a proud Scot, a magnificent host, a great cook, and a staunch and generous friend. Although she shared so much of her intellectual energy with the world, she also relished private reflection: her distillation of her own experiences into the memoir of her childhood was profoundly important to her.
It is perhaps appropriate to invoke an analogy from a very famous children’s book. The Cheshire Cat’s smile lingered long after the rest of him had departed. For many of her family, friends, and associates, I suspect the memory of her frequent and joyous laughter will long continue to invoke images of a vital thinker and organizer, a one-woman social dynamo, and a loyal and unstinting friend.
Morag enjoyed reaching out to teachers, encouraging them to look at their own classroom practice and to recognise and celebrate the knowledge and capability of the children. Classroom-based research was a central part of the Advanced Diploma which Morag and I co-taught for many years and often teachers’ classroom research was published as a way of extending conversations beyond the face-to-face.
Before becoming a colleague, Gabrielle Cliff Hodges was one of those teacher-researchers:
In Collaboration and Writing (1989), Morag wrote forthrightly about the teaching, discussions, doubts and excitements that went into producing the book, swearing that she would ‘never again edit a book with a lot of different contributors!’ (p. 198). Happily for us, of course, she conveniently forgot that oath, and many other wonderful multi-authored collaborations followed. Morag’s regular meetings for the classroom teachers, consultants and advisors involved in the Collaboration and Writing project were very invigorating. I can’t now recall how I became a member of the group, but I know many of us became lifelong colleagues and friends. We trusted Morag as our editor to help us through the challenges we would undoubtedly face, as well as her being unfailingly supportive in helping us shape them for publication. One of my contributions reflected on secondary students receiving autobiographical details from pupils in a nearby primary school and using them to write stories with those children as the hero or heroine before sending them back to be read and reviewed. The other was about students writing autobiographies and being invited to discuss them with parents or grandparents. The process of discussing these ideas within Morag’s group and then being encouraged to preserve them in a formal publication was a memorable staging point in my teaching journey.
There are two other collaborations for which I owe Morag a huge debt of gratitude. The first is The Politics of Reading (1993) which she co-edited with Mary Jane Drummond. At the time, education across all phases was being changed dramatically (mostly by politicians and, in many people’s views, for the worse) so the publication was a timely move. Unsurprisingly, it is possible to detect Morag’s anger and frustration in the ‘Introduction’ but also the selection of chapters which were intended to speak back to some of the ideas being imposed.
The second collaboration was Tales, Tellers and Texts (2000) for which, on this occasion, Morag generously invited me to join with her and Mary Jane in the editing process. The motive for the compilation was the National Year of Reading which had taken place in 1999 and, in our region, had involved some exciting events with oral storytellers, published children’s authors, researchers into children’s literature and teachers in higher education who were then invited to write up their ideas into a book. In both, Morag was as influential as ever, not least when persuading people to participate. Above all, Tales, Tellers and Texts is (like the very many other collaborations which followed in the years to come) imbued with Morag’s passion for literature and her absolute conviction that all young people should be able to share in it fully.
Morag’s love of poetry in particular will be one aspect of her work for which she will be very fondly remembered. I have always enjoyed the collection called Mother Gave A Shout (1990) which she edited with Susanna Steele. In it, there is a four-line poem by Marianne Moore, ‘I May, I Might, I Must’ which I remember being very struck by when I first read it and to which I have often returned. For me (and probably a fair few like me), I am the person who thinks that an obstacle appears impassable, while Morag is the speaker in the poem who – always – thinks ‘I/ can get across it if I try.’ For that we will always be so grateful.
I loved working with Morag, as did all her other colleagues. Her effervescence was infectious as Holly Anderson recalls:
In the mid 1990s I was lucky enough to be appointed onto the language team at Homerton College Cambridge by Morag, who was the team coordinator. I had been an early years teacher and advisory teacher so worked with one of the two early years groups on what was then a four year B.ED. Under Morag’s vision and enthusiasm the course was inspirational, both for us tutors and for the students. Love and knowledge of books was central to our work. Part of the first year exam was to write and produce a book for a specific child. These were publically displayed and the students wrote a critique of why they had chosen to write the book, what had inspired them, and how it had been received by its young reader. Over the years Morag researched and developed this passion: both undergraduate and postgraduate courses were designed to give the students access to the richest literature possible (including popular culture and media texts).
Morag was both an inspirational leader and a supportive collaborator. Students were encouraged to reflect on their own experiences and pursue areas of interest stimulated by their studies. Indeed several went on to teach on the courses and to contribute to books that Morag was editing. Under Morag’s lead the work gained acclaim and she was invited to speak at both national and international conferences. At the same time, her love of poetry continued to be a life-long passion. She held poetry writing workshops for local Cambridge children at weekends as well as working alongside teachers modelling supportive practice so they in turn could encourage the children they taught to have the confidence to write poetry. She wrote a seminal book on children’s poetry From The Garden to the Street (1998) then co-edited Poetry and Childhood (2010).
When she became a Professor within the University she chose to be Professor of Children’s Poetry (which is, I believe, unique). Having always been a champion of Caribbean poetry, which included compiling many anthologies, one of her last roles was to lead a collaboration funded by the Centre for Commonwealth Education from 2010 to 2015 working with poets and teachers from the University of the West Indies and the UK.
Morag’s energy and delight in sharing and exploring all aspects of language was boundless, her enthusiasm captivating. She had deeply held principles and was never afraid to stand up for what she felt would enable the students (and subsequently their pupils) create the best possible environment in which to find their voices and to love the written and spoken word. However beyond being a wonderful teacher and researcher there is more, and I feel inadequate in trying to convey the joy, passion and zest for life that Morag brought to all her work and her relationships. As colleagues we were close friends – always up for a laugh, a song, and a party. Morag could party like no other. From her Hogwarts Formal Hall for students – where a live owl flew the length of the Great Hall – to Burns Suppers at her home or in college (complete with piper and a ceilidh band), to Christmas dinners with the Language team (present giving obligatory) where we consumed large quantities of food and wine, played quizzes and laughed until it hurt, to singing Everly Brothers or songs from old musicals at the tops of our voices in her car as we returned from inservice training sessions . It has been a joy and a privilege to know Morag for over 30 years and I shall miss her more than I can say.
Beyond her work at Cambridge, Morag was a committed member of UKLA, as Lynda Graham recalls:
I remember conferences at Homerton in the 1990s, and Morag always welcoming folk as they arrived. She made me feel as though I was the one person she was glad to see!
She was winner of the Academic Book Award in 2013 ( and didn’t want to sign copies as she felt the book was rather expensive).
She was a thoughtful, challenging, encouraging chair of the UKLA Academic Book Award for a number of years, weaving local Cambridgeshire HE folk onto the panel and into UKLA .
And Andrew Lambirth valued the way that Morag’s publications brought the spotlight on to poetry for and by children:
I learned so much from Morag’s work over all of my professional career. I Started with Dunn, Styles and Warburton’s 1987 book In Tune with Yourself: Children Writing Poetry – A Handbook for Teachers, and then later the series of inspiring edited books she produced with Colleagues from the University of Cambridge that included After Alice: Exploring Children’s Literature (1992). Morag’s ground breaking book From the Garden to the Street: Three Hundred Years of Poetry for Children (1998) is a rich and unique insight into the historical context for this form of poetry. Moreover, in this book she made her mission clear on her approach to promoting poetry written for children and that was to: “seek out poetry that is as honest, vigorous and unsentimental, as in my view, children generally are” (p.xvi). To me, all her work was built on the intrinsic respect she had for young people. Morag was generous in the volume of insight, wisdom and guidance she provided over many years and for this we will always be grateful. Thank you, Morag.
Mary Anne Wolpert sums up the many facets of Morag’s remarkable contribution to teaching, children and children’s literature as well as the love she gave and received:
Morag was a great educator, scholar and true friend of UKLA. She was, and will continue to be, an inspiration to teachers, students and academics and for everyone who cares about teaching and scholarship in literacy education and, most of all, poetry for children.
Morag was a wonderful ambassador for the UKLA, not only because of her scholarly writings about children’s literature, picturebooks and poetry, but also by chairing the UKLA Academic Book Committee. She attended and spoke at numerous conferences, enlivening UKLA gatherings from the Regional (Eastern) and National to the annual International Conferences with her deep knowledge and sense of fun. Being at her table ata banquet dinner with her was a joy!
For the many teachers and students in the BEd, PGCE, Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Doctoral courses at the University of Cambridge and in many areas of the UK and internationally, Morag was a kind, astute and critical friend. With other great colleagues, she fought hard to establish the Undergraduate Tripos in Children’s Literature and the Masters in Critical Approaches to Children’s literature, putting the study of Children’s Literature in its rightful place on the academic map. For those of us lucky enough to have been taught by her or worked alongside her, we will be forever guided by her wisdom.
In her seminal project, Children Reading Pictures (now in its third edition) with other colleagues she explored how young children interpret picturebooks, creating a child-centred approach to the study of visual texts for young people. Because of Morag, scholars and students in the field hear and understand the voices of young readers. This was a central value in all her work. She often shared the poems the children wrote and performed at her Saturday Poetry workshops in her talks. No one who has been present at her memorable lectures could forget the tears and joy in her eyes as she recited these.
Amongst her many publications, from anthologies of children’s poetry to academic works, Morag championed the case for the quality and rich variety of children’s poetry, especially in promoting the contribution of female poets. In From the Garden to the Street: Three Hundred Years of Poetry for Children, through her meticulous research and infectious enthusiasm, Morag informed, provoked and, above all, entertained her readers with her love for poetry. Her work with The Caribbean Poetry Project is just one of the many inspiring programmes she initiated and was one of her true loves. Morag lived her life ‘Wid mi riddim/wid mi rime/ wid mi own sense a time.’
What better tribute to a remarkable academic career than in 2011, when Morag was awarded a Personal Chair at Cambridge in recognition of her unique voice, distinguished contributions and influence in the field of Children’s Literature, both nationally and internationally. In typical Morag fashion, she was greatly surprised and said humbly, Professor of what?” Quite rightly, it did not take her long to decide that she should be known as the first ever Professor of Children’s Poetry. She leaves a lasting legacy for us all. ;
“The best poetry says something that lasts.
It leaves a footprint deep in the earth of what it means to be human
Morag Styles
Morag brought joy to all who were privileged enough to know her. Her house was full of books, laughter, music and love. The list of friends, students and colleagues she was kind to and supportive of is extensive. I think her family would like to share with us that she was a wonderful sister, auntie and great auntie. Morag was incomparable.
Bye bye my dear pal. I celebrate your remarkable life and miss you terribly.
Morag gave so much to everyone she met. She was thoughtful, incisive, gregarious, and a deeply influential colleague and friend. All of these tributes show just how her personal warmth, as well as her scholarship, have affected many lives, leaving a world richer for her presence.
Eve Bearne
Morag Styles, as remembered by Michael Rosen
I am biased about Morag. She was unbelievably kind and generous about everything that I did. She championed my work, she brought me to festivals she ran, asked me to speak at conferences and invited me to collaborate with her on books and exhibitions. For all that, I will be forever grateful to her.
I hope I’m objective enough about Morag to see that she was of course much more than this. She was a great scholar of children’s books – especially the history and practice of poetry of children. Her publications stand the test of time. Please let’s list them and read them.
She was a superb teacher: I have met countless former students of hers who have told me how Morag enthused them, delighted them, coaxed them into sharing books and poems with children. Morag was a fighter who stood up for the power of literature and the arts in education and there were times that this involved battling against people who wanted to sideline this kind of work. She stood her ground.
She was also a great organiser and collaborator. I saw many time at close quarters how she pulled together festivals, conferences and publications working with others to make sure that things got done.
And she was a friend. There were many times over the years that Morag and I chatted about how things were going, how we were coping, how we were bringing up our children and much more. There were times when we would be weeping with laughter, other times weeping with sorrow. Someone who loved Morag was my late son Eddie. As a little boy, he called her ‘Mogag’. Morag loved being Mogag. And so it was, even after Eddie died, Morag was Mogag. We are hugely grateful to you, Mogag, and you are already much missed.
Michael Rosen
Attached below is a reading list of Morag’s works, as suggested by Michael Rosen.
Fond memories of Morag Styles
by Joy Court,
It is always a nerve wracking prospect to meet heroes in the flesh, but I will always remember the kindness of those sparkling eyes and the welcome Morag showed when, to my complete astonishment, I was invited to become a Fellow of the English Association and then to join the Children’s Literature SIG, so ably led by her. I was never made to feel inadequate as a librarian amongst scholars and what help I could offer was always noted and appreciated. I particularly enjoyed contributing from my perspective of leading the Carnegie medal process, to a conference debating what was meant by the ‘literary canon’ in terms of children’s literature today. Morag had brought together publishers, authors, educators, researchers, students and librarians and what an enjoyable, thought provoking debate that was.
When I became the Reviews Editor of the School Librarian journal I really wanted to strengthen the team of expert reviewers and was so delighted that Morag was willing to take on the task. Choosing the most interesting picturebooks and poetry that would justify her time and attention was a task to be relished and I loved our email exchanges and of course her beautifully crafted in depth reviews. Her expertise and insight in those specialisms was second to none. We were so lucky to benefit from that.
I was also fortunate enough to persuade her to share her knowledge and expertise with a wider group of librarians as a keynote speaker at the Youth Libraries Group annual conference in 2020 and she gamely stepped up to the plate to help us deliver that conference entirely virtually when the pandemic struck. She may not have enjoyed it as much as a visit to sunny Torquay but nevertheless it was an enormously educative and inspiring session for all the delegates. It is difficult to remember just how impossible a virtual conference seemed then when we are all now so used to presenting and meeting online.
I will always be professionally grateful to Morag for raising the level of academic and critical attention paid to children’s literature and for deepening my understanding of how to ‘read’ picturebooks and for removing some of my personal insecurities around poetry.
Personally I feel very lucky to have met her and to have enjoyed her wit and humour as well as benefitting from her care and kindness. A sad loss to us all, but leaving such a legacy to be grateful for.