Cerrie Burnell

Claire "Cerrie" Burnell is an English author, actress, singer, playwright, and former television presenter for the BBC children's channel CBeebies. She is the author of twelve books for children. They are all dedicated to her daughter Amelie. Burnell was named "Claire" at birth, but at the age of 10, she started asking people to call her "Cerrie."

Cerrie Burnell was born with her right arm ending just below the elbow. Her parents persuaded her to wear a prosthesis, but she resisted from the beginning and stopped wearing it completely when she was nine years old. Burnell also had dyslexia, which made her unable to read until she was 10. She learned to read with the help of extra classes and the Letterland system.

Burnell graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University, where she studied acting. She has performed in theatre in the UK and was also a member of the National Youth Theatre.

Burnell joined CBeebies' presentation department on 26 January 2009, as a continuity presenter for Discover and Do and The Bedtime Hour, alongside Alex Winters. Her initial appearance on CBeebies sparked a controversy about children's television presenters with physical disabilities.

BBC faced controversy as parents claimed in complaints that the one-armed presenter was scaring children and that this prompted difficult conversations to explain her disability. BBC and multiple disability groups stated that the problem was the prejudices of the parents projected onto the children. However, Burnell left CBeebies in April 2017.

In 2018, she portrayed the role of Penny Stevenson in the BBC soap opera Doctors.

As an author, Cerri Burnell made her debut with a children's book, Snowflakes (2013). The book, about a mixed-race city girl sent to live with her grandmother in a magical village, was inspired by Burnell's daughter, Amelie, born in 2008, who is also mixed-race.

In 2020 she released I Am Not a Label: 34 disabled artists, thinkers, athletes, and activists from past and present, an illustrated anthology of biographies for children, illustrated by Lauren Baldo. This book tells the stories of 34 unique individuals, from Frida Kahlo to Stephen Hawking, who overcame obstacles, owned their differences, and paved the way for others by making their bodies and minds work for them.

Cerri Burnell currently lives in Hackney, East London.

Photo credit: cerrieburnell.co.uk