"Our voices carry power": Why children need access to a range of accents and dialects

I think there’s this beautiful movement that we’ve known about in publishing for quite some time now about the need for young people to see themselves reflected in the books that they’re reading, to see themselves. 

And I think it’s just as important for young people to hear themselves, because I think our voices carry power, and our voices draw upon our cultural heritage.

Poetry, for me, is about thoughts and feelings and ideas. And I think if you’re a young person that knows that you can express yourself in your voice, in your accent and dialect, I think it’s a really powerful thing.

There are so few opportunities, I think, especially in schools, for teachers to allow young people to use their voice.

Now, there are all sorts of wider societal issues in England particularly that mean that standard spoken English is at the centre of the education system. 

There are a lot of people whose work has influenced me and my thoughts and feelings and ideas about accent and dialect. 

Michael Rosen, for example, has written lots and extensively on the subject. We know that Michael is a bit of a genius! Go and seek his work out. It’s really important. 

Michael’s laid lots of foundations about why our voices are so important, the way that we use language. The English language is pieced together from so many different languages. Using your voice allows us to demonstrate who we are and to show our cultural heritage. So go and have a look at Michael Rosen’s educational work.

I’m a big fan of David Almond, and I love the way that David’s work quite often is written in a north-eastern accent and dialect. It’s a beautiful thing.

If you’re interested in the education side of stuff and, sort of, what the problem is with the English education system and its demand on teachers to demonstrate standard spoken English in this beautifully diverse 2025, go and have a look at the work of Dr Ian Cushing. 

You can find Ian’s work everywhere. Ian is a linguist in Manchester and he’s written some incredibly powerful pieces about accent, dialect, and about standard spoken English. His colleague, Dr Rob Drummond, has also written some fantastic stuff about accent and dialect.

Margaret McDonald – Glasgow Boys, for example, has this beautiful accent and dialect in it. I’ve long been influenced by and loved the work of Benjamin Zephaniah, John Agard, Val Bloom, Grace Nichols. I love the poet Andrew McMillan and his dad, Ian McMillan. There’s a lot of Yorkshire stuff in there.

A book that really, really blew me away was Liz Hyder’s Bearmouth. If you’ve not read that, go and read that. It’s incredible.

And recently I was really pleased to be one of the judges on the BBC Young Writers Award. And the winning story by Rebecca Smith is written in a beautiful Yorkshire dialect, which is really nice because my mum was from Sheffield.

I do think it is really powerful to let young people see and hear this range of different accents and different voices, and give young people the choice to say, ​“This is who I am, this is how I want to say stuff.”

Leave me a comment if you’ve got any other great recommendations, and we’ll try to get a bit of a list together.

Get in touch by tagging @BookTrust on social media. You can also get in touch with Matt on social media: @EarlyTrain on X or @mattgoodfellowpoet on Instagram.