The new Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman said she would use her position to be an "advocate" for public libraries and campaign against "short-sighted" closures.
Blackman, the author of dozens of books including the award-winning Noughts & Crosses series for teen-agers, took over from previous laureate Julia Donaldson, who lives in Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire, at a ceremony in central London.
The 51-year-old, who was a computer programmer before becoming a full-time writer 23 years ago, said she owed her success to her local libraries when she was growing up in Lewisham, south-east London.
Blackman said: "Each laureate can bring their own passions to it, but one of my passions is the public library service and I wouldn't have become an author and I certainly wouldn't have been standing here now as the Children's Laureate if it had not been for my local library service so that's definitely something I want to be an advocate for and cherishing our libraries and speaking out against library closures.
"I will do everything I can to ensure our library service is maintained or improved especially when you look at other countries like South Korea, which in 2012 initiated a programme to build 180 libraries. Russia is building libraries but we seem to be closing them. I think its very short-sighted."
The mother-of-one, whose novel Pig-Heart Boy was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal and made into a BBC series, said it was "a real honour" to be chosen for the role and that children's books needed a champion.
She said: "They inspire our children, they raise their ambitions, they teach them to have better vocabulary, they teach them empathy. There are so many reasons for books and it needs someone to go out there and bang the drum for them and say 'yes our children should be reading'."
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