Former Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo has said he is angry that libraries are facing the axe.
He was pleased to support this paper's campaign – Keep Libraries an Open Book.
'The bunch of people running Devon are taking the easy way out. They are depriving particularly the very young and the very old of their local library. 'A library is like a hospital – it should be free to everyone at the point of delivery.' Mr Morpurgo said that Devon is a huge, vast county of little lanes and tiny villages. It needed its many small libraries. 'Devon County Council are putting all our money into fewer libraries. What world are they living in? Closing libraries seriously undermines the intellect and culture of the nation. I can't imagine what a county councillor who was previously a headmistress is thinking of, agreeing to close libraries. She should be fighting the very idea of any closures.' Mr Morpurgo is one of Britain's most celebrated authors. He won the Whitbread Prize for The Wreck of the Zanzibar, the Smarties Prize and the Writers Guild Award for The Butterfly Lion, and the Children's Book Award for Kensuke's Kingdom, which has been adapted as a stage play that opens in Torquay this week. A Devon resident, Mr Morpurgo is a Fellow of King's College, London, and holds honorary doctorates from Plymouth, Exeter and Hertfordshire universities.