Biddulph, Patel and Said among winners of the inaugural Week Junior Book Awards

Rob Biddulph, Serena Patel and SF Said have been named among the winners of the inaugural Week Junior Book Awards.

The Bookseller announced in January that it had joined forces with leading children’s magazine The Week Junior to launch The Week Junior Book Awards, with the aim of addressing the lack of critical discourse around children’s literature caused by reduced review pages and underfunded libraries.

The awards hope to shine a light on both established children’s authors and new, diverse voices, giving them a platform to promote their books to a wide audience. The winners were announced at a ceremony at London’s County Hall on 2nd October. The awards are sponsored by Bookily from National Book Tokens in partnership with The Bookseller and World Book Day.

Children’s Book Cover of the Year went to Peanut Jones and The Twelve Portals written and illustrated by Biddulph (Macmillan Children’s Books), Children’s Book of the Year: Younger Fiction (six to nine-year-olds) went to Anisha, Accidental Detective: Holiday Adventure by Patel and illustrated by Emma McCann (Usborne) and Children’s Book of the Year: Older Fiction (nine to 12-year-olds) went to Tyger by Said, illustrated by Dave McKean (David Fickling Books).

Meanwhile, Children’s Audiobook of the Year went to Audio Adventures: Natural Wonders of the World by Sidra Ansari and narrated by Ben Bailey-Smith (Ladybird); Children’s Book of the Year: Breakthrough, supported by World Book Day, went to The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries: Drama and Danger by J T Williams and illustrated by Simone Douglas (Farshore) and Children’s Illustrated Book of the Year went to Frankie’s World, written and illustrated by Aoife Dooley (Scholastic).

The winner in the Children’s Book of the Year: Older Non-Fiction (nine to 12-year-olds) category was Real Life Dragons and Their Stories of Survival by Anita Ganeri and illustrated by Jianan Liu (Wayland), Children’s Book of the Year: STEM, in association with The Week Junior Science+Nature went to 24 Hours in Time and Space by Rob Lloyd Jones and illustrated by Laurent King (Usborne) and Children’s Book of the Year: Younger Non-Fiction (six to nine-year-olds) went to The Extraordinary Book That Makes You Feel Happy by Poppy O’Neill and illustrated by Caribay M Benavides (Weldon Owen Children’s Books).

The inaugural awards were chaired by editorial director of The Week Junior, Anna Bassi, who said: “Our wonderful – and thoroughly deserving – winning titles represent a broad and fascinating spectrum of topics, genres and voices, but what they all have in common is their absolute power to captivate, entertain and inform young readers. The judges were unanimous in their decisions and I feel privileged to celebrate the success of the authors, illustrators and publishers whose brilliant books bring such pleasure to children, and help form a love of reading that will have benefits for the rest of their lives.”

Editor of The Bookseller Philip Jones said: “We are delighted with the winners at these inaugural children’s book awards, organised so brilliantly by The Week Junior. This is bold, diverse, and wonderfully rich storytelling backed by brilliant, striking design and illustration. Our congratulations to all the winners and everyone involved in bringing these fantastic awards forwards, they are hugely needed.”