Storychest - Children of Lockdown

Thank you to all of you who submitted an entry to the Children of Lockdown collection. We have been overwhelmed by the quality and thoughtfulness of your submissions and our judges have had an extraordinarily hard time in deciding the winners.

It is a truly amazing collection, with entries from children ranging in age from 3 to 17 from all across the United Kingdom, and even some from Australia. There’s humour, profound sadness, hope, boredom, observation, imagination and everything in between.

All 200 entries are published here and will be archived by the British Library as part of the UK Web Archive.

Together we’ve captured a unique moment in time, which future generations will be able to look back on and explore.

Congratulations to all of the entrants.

Charlotte McMillan, Founder, Storychest.
31 August 2020

All entries

Winners

Please click through to view our winners’ entries:

Gallery

The UK Web Archive

Ian Cooke, Head of Contemporary British Publications at the British Library, said: “The British Library will be including Children of Lockdown in its collection on COvid19, as part of the UK Web Archive. This collection covers medical, healthcare, policy, and social impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic. As part of this, we are preserving a record of personal responses and accounts of life during Coronavirus, through communications made public online and preserved in the UK Web Archive. Children of Lockdown will be an important part of this collection, showing first-hand accounts of how lockdown impacted a generation, through a range of creative and written responses.”

The Judges

**Nicola J Rowley**,

award-winning author of Mug the Wumph the Dancing Wizard, said: “I’ve really enjoyed reading and experiencing life in lockdown through the eyes of children in Storychest’s competition. It was such a difficult decision to choose winners, but anyone who entered should be extremely proud of their work in helping future generations understand what we have been through."

**Janey Jones**,

writer of the best-selling Princess Poppy series, said: “It has been an absolute honour to judge this wonderful competition - but the hardest job too, as the standard has been very high in every age group. The submissions have been touching, imaginative, evocative and inspiring. I've seen depth, maturity, colour, talent, variety and originality. Well done to everyone and thank you!”

**Rhys Brisenden**,

an English teacher in South East London, whose debut picture book, 'Incredible You', was published in 2019, said: “I was thoroughly impressed with the thoughtfulness and talent on display across the entries - well done to everyone who took part! What a success!”

**Natalie Reeves Billing**,

author of My Mummy Is A Monster, said: “I'm stunned by the standard of entries received into our Storychest. Judging them has been one of the hardest things I have had to do in a long time. There is such a wide range of creative disciplines, and finding ways to select one over another posed a huge challenge. And that is testament to you, the Children of Lockdown. You have created a body of work to be thoroughly proud of. I have laughed, cried, fumed, and pondered today, the entire range of human emotions. You have moved me, and that's the point of this thing we call creativity. Well done to you all.”

**Sandra Horn**,

poet and award-winning children’s author of Tattybogle and other books, said “Hats off to all the makers, bakers and exercise-takers (and their brilliant parents) who took up the Lockdown Storychest challenge! There was a huge range of work from photographs, original hand-drawn or painted artwork, use of digital images, stories, diaries, poetry…amazing! It was a hard task to judge between them all, so well done everyone. It was very heartening to see how many of you had used the lockdown time to such good effect. So many of you tried new activities, developed new skills, developed yourselves, staving off boredom and missing friends, with all that you undertook. I’m humbled by you.”

About Storychest

At Storychest, we are all about helping you to capture and save those precious moments of your life,
in words and pictures and to share with close friends and family.

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