Anderson, Weaver and Davies among winners of the English 4-11 Picture Book Awards

Justin Anderson, Jo Weaver and Nicola Davies are among the winners of the 2023 English 4-11 Picture Book Awards.

Established in 1995, the awards are presented by the English Association to the best children’s picture books of the year. Awards are given to fiction and non-fiction for age ranges four to seven years and seven to 11 years.

The judging panel consists of members of the English 4-11 Editorial Board, all of whom are practising teachers and primary/early years education experts.

The winners in each category, plus the winner of this year’s Margaret Mallett Award for Children’s Non-Fiction, were announced at the online Awards Ceremony on Thursday 25th May 2023.

Invertebrates Are Cool! by Nicola Davies and Abbie Cameron (Graffeg) won in the non-fiction four to seven category, while in fiction four to seven, the winner was Flooded by Mariajo Illustrajo (The Quarto Group). In non-fiction seven to 11, Real-Life Dragons And Their Stories Of Survival by Anita Ganeri and Jianan Liu (Hachette Children’s Group) was the winner. And in the fiction category for that age group, Paradise Sands by Levi Pinfold (Walker Books) came in first place. 

Each year, one of the books submitted to the awards is selected as the recipient of the Margaret Mallett Award for Children’s Non-Fiction. This year, the winner in this category was Narwhal: The Arctic Unicorn by Justin Anderson and Jo Weaver (Walker Books).

The chair of the judging panel, Sally Wilkinson, commented: "It is a pleasure to honour prolific and well-loved  children’s non-fiction authors like Nicola Davies, Anita Ganeri, and Justin Anderson, who have won many awards for their writing, film, and television work, all in celebration of our amazing natural world. These authors have worked in partnership with illustrators Abbie Cameron, Jianan Liu, and Jo Weaver to create rich, engaging texts for us to dive into.

"Our fiction winners, Mariajo Illustrajo and Levi Pinfold, represent new, emerging talent and established, award-winning author-illustrators, both with lyrical, detailed works to share with us. We’re thrilled to announce this year’s winners, and look forward to seeing what next year’s competition brings!"