Three for Otter-Barry on CLiPPA shortlist

Manjeet Mann, Matt Goodfellow and Valerie Bloom are among those shortlisted for the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education Poetry Award (CLiPPA), which this year sees three nominations for indie Otter-Barry Books.

Mann makes the shortlist for the second year in succession for her Costa-winning verse novel The Crossing (Penguin), vying against Goodfellow’s Caterpillar Cake illustrated by Krina Patel-Sage (Otter-Barry Books) and Bloom’s Stars with Flaming Tails illustrated by Ken Wilson-Max (Otter-Barry Books).  

Goodfellow is also in contention with Being Me: Poems about Thoughts, Worries and Feelings, co-written with Liz Brownlee and Laura Mucha, illustrated by Victoria Jane Wheeler (Otter-Barry Books). Cloud Soup by Kate Wakeling and illustrated by Elīna Brasliņa (The Emma Press) completes the shortlist.  

This year’s shortlist was announced live at the Manchester Poetry Library at Manchester Metropolitan University, in an event hosted by poet Ruth Awolola. Schools from across the city attended with pupils reading poems from each of the shortlisted collections on stage. 

Philip Gross, chair of judges, said: “This year’s crop of books shows the diverse energies of children’s poetry exploding in all directions, a glorious quandary for the judges to have: how to reduce this abundance to a shortlist, let alone a single winner. There seems to be a new confidence in the air, among publishers as well as writers – building on poetry’s full resources, searching out new growing points.”  

The winner of the CLiPPA 2022 will be announced at a ceremony at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in central London on 8th July. Young winners of the 2022 Shadowing Scheme competition will perform live as will all the shortlisted poets. The event will be streamed live into schools across the UK.