Booktrust unveils shortlist for Best Book Awards

The Booktrust Best Book Awards with Amazon Kindle today revealed its shortlist [full list below], with Walker gaining a nod in three categories and Nosy Crow having half the nominations for the tech award.

Walker’s Peck Peck Peck by Lucy Cousins is up for the 0-5s best picture book award, and its Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made by Stephen Pastis is nominated for 6-8 best story award. Walker also has a book nominated in the 9-11 best facts category; The Romans: Gods, Emperors and Dormice by Marcia Williams.

In the best tech 0-14 division, two of digital Nosy Crow’s digital products - Axel Scheffler's Flip-Flap Farm and Little Red Riding Hood – are up against ITV SignPosts' Signed Stories: The Lark in the Ark and the digital edition of The Slightly Annoying Elephant, written by David Walliams and published by HarperCollins Children’s Books.  

Chicken House and Penguin are battling each other for the 12-14 best story award. Chicken House has two books in the running (Dead Romantic by C J Skuse and You Don’t Know Me by Sophia Bennett) as does Penguin (Heroic by Phil Earle and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green).

Judge and TV presenter Mel Giedroyc said: "It was an absolute delight to reconnect with my inner-child and help shape this shortlist… As a nation we are blessed with some exceptional literary and illustrative talent, and it was great to be part of a process that looks to celebrate that.”

The shortlist was chosen by judges including children’s laureate Malorie Blackman and "Made in Chelsea" star Andy Jordan, as well as Giedroyc.

Children across the country signed up for the project by schools and libraries will now be invited to vote for the overall winners of each specific category and the winners will be announced during Children’s Book Week, which runs from 30th June – 4th July.


0-5 Best Picture Book
Do Not Enter the Monster Zoo, Amy Sparkes, illustrated by Sarah Ogilvie, Red Fox
Peck Peck Peck, Lucy Cousins, Walker Books
The Snatchabook, Helen Docherty, illustrated by Thomas Docherty, Alison Green Books
The Storm Whale, Benji Davies, Simon and Schuster

6-8 Best Story
Oliver and the Seawigs, Philip Reeve, illustrated by Sarah McInytre, Oxford University Press
Penny Dreadful is a Record Breaker, Joanna Nadin, illustrated by Jessica Mikhail, Usbourne
The Great Galloon, Tom Banks, Hot Key Books
Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, Stephen Pastis, Walker Books

9-11 Best Story
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck, Jeff Kinney, Puffin
The Jade Boy, Cate Cain, Templar
Lockwood and Co: The Screaming Staircase, Jonathan Stroud, Doubleday
The Mysterious Misadventures of Clemency Wrigglesworth, Julia Lee, Oxford University Press

9-11 Best Fact
Not for Parents: How to be a Dinosaur Hunter, Scott Forbes, illustrated by, James Gulliver Hancock, Lonely Planet
Operation Ouch!: Your Brilliant Body, Dr Chris van Tulleken and Dr Xand van Tulleken, Little Brown Young Readers
The Romans: Gods, Emperors and Dormice, Marcia Williams, Walker Books
Space in 30 Seconds, Clive Gifford , illustrated by Melvyn Evans, Ivy Kids

12-14 Best Story
Dead Romantic, C J Skuse, Chicken House
Heroic, Phil Earle, Penguin
The Fault in Our Stars, John Green, Penguin
You Don’t Know Me, Sophia Bennett, Chicken House

Best Tech 0-14
Axel Scheffler's Flip-Flap Farm, Axel Scheffler, Nosy Crow
Signed Stories: The Lark in the Ark, Peter Bently, illustrated by Lynne Chapman, ITV SignPost
Little Red Riding Hood, Illustrated by Ed Bryan, Nosy Crow
The Slightly Annoying Elephant, David Walliams, illustrated by Tony Ross, Harper Collins Children's Books