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CLiPPA Shortlist Announced

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The 2021 shortlist for the CLiPPA (CLPE Children’s Poetry Award)—the UK’s only award for poetry published for children—was announced yesterday.

The five books on the shortlist are:

Slam! You’re Gonna Wanna Hear This, chosen by Nikita Gill, Macmillan

Bright Bursts of Colour, Matt Goodfellow, illustrated by Aleksei Bitskoff, Bloomsbury Education

Run, Rebel by Manjeet Mann, Penguin

Big Green Crocodile Rhymes to Say and Play, by Jane Newberry, illustrated by Carolina Rabei, Otter-Barry Books

On the Move, Michael Rosen, illustrated by Quentin Blake, Walker Books

Allie Esiri, chair of the judges, said ‘If you think your child doesn’t like poetry, please share the books on this year’s CLiPPA shortlist. They are varied – a picture book, an anthology, outstanding single collections and a verse novel – but each one reminds us what the best poetry for children can do. The poets capture real life experiences that will excite their audience and speak directly to them; they plant images and ideas and allow them space to grow. Poetry demands more than other kinds of literature but gives back more too and there are poems in these books that will remain in the minds of their readers forever. I’m particularly pleased that there is a book for the very young on the shortlist, but all these collections could start a lifetime of poetry pleasure.’

This year the judges are poets Zaro Weil, who won the 2020 CLiPPA with her collection Cherry Moon and Amina Jama; Julie Blake, co-founder and Director of Poetry By Heart; and Charlotte Hacking, Learning Programmes Leader at CLPE. Allie Esiri, aka the ‘poetry powerhouse’, whose poetry anthologies include A Poem for Every Day of the Year and regularly top the bestseller lists, is chair of the CLiPPA 2021 judging panel.

The winner of the 2021 CLiPPA will be revealed at the The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, on Monday 11 October, in a Poetry Show introduced by CLiPPA judges, Zaro Weil and Allie Esiri, and featuring performances by the shortlisted poets. Schools across the UK and beyond will be able to watch the show on The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival platform and access poetry CPD sessions created by CLPE.

Branford Boase Award 2021 Winner

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Struan Murray is the winner of the 2021 Branford Boase Award for the year’s outstanding debut novel for children for  Orphans of the Tide.

Set in the last city of a drowned world, the book opens with a dead whale washing in with the tide, only for a living boy to climb out. The City’s religious authorities believe his body to house The Enemy, the god they hold responsible for putting the world in its watery grave but Ellie, a young inventor, is convinced he’s innocent. The award is shared with Murray’s editor, Ben Horslen, of Puffin.

The announcement was made by Liz Hyder on Thursday 15 July as part of a public event presented by the LoveReading LitFest. The event featured contributions from all the shortlisted authors plus previous winners and culminated in a discussion with Struan Murray and his editor Ben Horslen.  Struan Murray received a cheque for £1,000 and both author and editor were given engraved trophies.

The 2021 shortlist was particularly strong. Described as ‘a showcase for all that children’s literature can be’ it featured powerful contemporary stories, a wildly energetic comedy adventure, an ‘own voices’ novel starring a young girl with autism, a dark story of witches and witchcraft in the 17th century, and the first verse novel to feature in the award’s history. Orphans of the Tide was the only fantasy adventure on the list and impressed all the judges with its originality and the beauty of its writing.

The full shortlist consisted of:

  • When Life Gives You Mangoes
    by Kereen Getten, edited by Sarah Odedina (Pushkin Children’s Books)
  • Witch
    by Finbar Hawkins, edited by Fiona Kennedy (Zephyr)
  • And the Stars Were Burning Brightly
    by Danielle Jawando, edited by Jane Griffiths (Simon and Schuster)
  • A Kind of Spark
    by Elle McNicoll, edited by Eishar Brar (Knights Of)
  • Run, Rebel
    by Manjeet Mann, edited by Carmen McCullough (Penguin)
  • Orphans of the Tide
    by Struan Murray, edited by Ben Horslen, illustrated by Manuel Sumberac (Puffin)
  • The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates
    by Jenny Pearson, edited by Rebecca Hill and Becky Walker, illustrated by Rob Biddulph (Usborne)

Judge Liz Hyder, author of Bearmouth and winner of the 2020 Branford Boase Award winner said of Orphans of the Tide, ‘This book utterly stole my heart. Exquisitely written, it’s a phenomenal page-turner with characters that leap off the page and straight into your imagination. Orphans of the Tideexplores lots of big themes – environmental issues, friendship and xenophobia to name but a few – all wrapped up in an utterly compelling tale told by a master storyteller. Struan is an exceptional talent and I can’t wait to read everything else he ever writes.’

Struan Murray said, ‘I am so honoured and thrilled to have won the Branford Boase Award. This award is extremely special as it celebrates not only the author but the editor too, and understands and recognises that writing is a collaborative process that wouldn’t be possible without the commitment, imagination and skill of the editor. Working with Ben has stretched me as a writer and his insight contributed so much to the world of Orphans of the Tide that I couldn’t imagine it without him.’

Ben Horslen commented: ‘The author-editor relationship lies at the very heart of our industry, and to have an award that celebrates and showcases that relationship is a very special thing indeed. To be nominated is a career highlight that every editor hopes for. To win is simply a dream come true.’

This year’s judges were:

  • Zoey Dixon, YLG Librarian of the Year 2020
  • Scott Evans, teacher, consultant and founder of TheReaderTeacher.com
  • Natasha Radford of Chicken and Frog bookshop, Brentwood
  • Liz Hyder, author of Bearmouth, winner of the 2020 Branford Boase Award.

The panel was chaired, as usual, by Julia Eccleshare, children’s director of the Hay Festival.

The Branford Boase Award is supported by Walker Books.

Founded in 2000, the Branford Boase Award was set up in memory of award-winning author Henrietta Branford and her editor Wendy Boase of Walker Books, who both died in 1999, and is unique in honouring editor as well as author. It is regarded as one of the most important awards in children’s books and has an impressive record in picking out star authors at the start of their careers. Previous winners include Meg Rosoff, Mal Peet, Siobhan Dowd, Marcus Sedgwick, M.G. Leonard and Frances Hardinge. Winning editors shape contemporary children’s literature and include J K Rowling’s editor Barry Cunningham, Philip Pullman’s editor David Fickling and Fiona Kennedy, publisher of Michelle Paver, Marcus Sedgwick and Sally Gardner.

 

 

 

 

Winners of the 2021 Henrietta Branford Writing Competition Announced

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Winners of the 2021 Henrietta Branford Writing Competition Announced

Ahead of this coming Thursday’s announcement of the winner of the Branford Boase Award for a first children’s novel, six young writers aged between 9 and 17 have been named the winners of the  Henrietta Branford Writing Competition for Young People which runs in conjunction with the main award and aims to encourage writers of the future.

Entrants were asked to complete a story begun by last year’s Branford Boase Award winner, author Liz Hyder. Liz often finds inspiration in graveyards – so many names waiting to be reused – and her opening paragraph, written in the graveyard of St Leonard’s Church, Ludlow, near to her home, caught the imagination of hundreds of young people.

Entrants followed Liz’s advice to take their story where they wanted, and the six winners are therefore very different but all of an exceptionally high standard. Prue Goodwin, lecturer in literacy and children’s books, judges the competition, which is now in its 22nd year, and declared the entries, ‘without a doubt, the best collection of stories’ that she has received.

The winners are:

Gracie Beirne aged 15 years from Fleetwood, Lancashire for Remember

Pascale Connors aged 10 years from London, for Last Days of Summer

 Finn Else-McCormack aged 17 years from London, for Endings

 Isabella Greenaway aged 15 years from Rickmansworth for Dear Tom

 Leonardo Teodoro aged 12 years from London for Twisted Time

 Euan Wood aged 9 years from Edinburgh for The Book of Crows.

You can read all the winning stories on the Branford Boase Award website and hear Prue Goodwin talking about the winners and their writing.

The judges also wanted to highlight the following talented young writers, whose stories are Highly Commended:

Lucie Bellamy age 8 years Cardiff

Lola Morgan age 13 years Milton Keynes

Jafar Alani age 12 years Potters Bar

Florence Johnson age 11 years Charles Kingsley Primary, Eversley

Elodie Dunn age 10 years Newton St Cyres

Darcey Prince age 9 years Wantage

Aishwarya Kozhikkottu Mundakkaparambil age 12 years Harrow

Millie Hargate age 14 years Great Sankey High School, Warrington

Maybelle Yang age 11 years London

Dhriti Mehrotra age 11 years Isleworth

Collette Foster age 16 years Bristol

Erica Cload age 12 years Inverness

The winners each receive signed copies of the books on the shortlist for the 2021 Branford Boase Award.

The winner of the 2021 Branford Boase Award will be announced on Thursday 15 July as part of a special public event/celebration presented by the LoveReading LitFest.

School Librarian Of The Year

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Kristabelle Williams of Addey & Stanhope School, a voluntary aided state secondary in inner South East London, has been awarded the honour of School Librarian of the Year 2020/21 by the School Library Association (SLA).

Kristabelle is the school’s Learning Resource Centre Manager and received the award at the SLA’s online course on Leading School Libraries yesterday (11th June) after being announced as one of five librarians on the SLA’s 2020/21 Honour List last year. The final stage of the judging, in which a panel of experienced school librarians visit all the candidates in their workplaces, was delayed until earlier this year due to the pandemic.

Kristabelle runs her library single-handed and ensured its services continued during the pandemic by including books in lockdown care packages for families. She used BookTrust’s Bookbuzz programme and the Free Books Campaign to encourage book ownership.

She said in a recent article for Books for Keeps magazine: “Whether young people read or not is often due to cost, access and content… in a pandemic where the public faces further unemployment and child poverty crises, book gifting has, is and will continue to be an important part of what our school does.”

The award citation noted how Kristabelle used her experience of the pandemic to implement positive changes when school reopened—for example, by retaining a click-and-collect loan system and continuing remote community building.

ACHUKA sends Kristabelle warm congratulations.
You can follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/libthroughthis

Waterstones Children’s Prize 2021 Shortlist – Books For Younger Readers

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Orion Lost by Alastair Chisholm (Nosy Crow)

When Life Gives You Mangoes by Kereen Getten (Pushkin)

A Clock of Stars: The Shadow Moth by Francesca Gibbons, illustrated by Chris Riddell (HarperCollins)

A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll (Knights of)

The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates by Jenny Pearson, illustrated by Rob Biddulph (Usborne)

Llama Out Loud by Annabelle Sami, illustrated by Allen Fatimaharan (Farshore)

Shortlist for the 2021 Klaus Flugge Prize

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The shortlist for the Klaus Flugge Prize was announced at midday today (Wednesday 19 May). Established in 2016, the prize was set up to honour Klaus Flugge, founder of Andersen Press and an extremely influential figure in children’s picture books. It is awarded to the most promising and exciting newcomer to children’s picture book illustration.

From a longlist of twenty picture books by debut illustrators, the panel of judges comprising award-winning illustrator Posy Simmonds, Eva Eland (2020 Klaus Flugge Prize winner), Darryl Clifton (Illustration Programme Director at Camberwell College of Arts), Fleur Sinclair (owner of Sevenoaks Bookshop) and Mat Tobin of Oxford Brookes University, have shortlisted the following five titles.

Child of Galaxies Charlotte Ager, written by Blake Nuto, editor Emily Ball, art director Lilly Gottwald (Flying Eye Books)

While You’re Sleeping John Broadley, written by Mick Jackson, editor Neil Dunnicliffe, designer Sarah Crookes (Pavilion) [An ACHUKA Book of the Day 15 Oct 2020]

Gustavo the Shy Ghost Flavia Z Drago, editors Tanya Rosie and Maria Tunney, art Director Anne-Louise Jones (Walker Books)

I’m Sticking with You Steve Small, written by Smriti Halls editor Helen Mackenzie Smith, designer Jane Buckley (Simon and Schuster) [An ACHUKA Book of the Day 13 May 2020]

My Red Hat Rachel Stubbs, editor Denise Johnstone-Burt, designer Charlie Moyler (Walker Books)

THE ILLUSTRATORS

Charlotte Ager graduated from Kingston University with a BA in Illustration Animation in 2017. She is drawn to the poetry in everyday experience and the ways in which people can create narrative in spaces, both real and imagined. She loves that drawing has the ability to be moving and soft but also utterly silly. Originally from the Isle of Wight, she now lives in London.
https://www.instagram.com/charlotte.ager/

John Broadley has been active in illustration and small press publishing since the mid 1990s. He works mostly in pen and ink and collage. His work has recently been used to decorate the interiors, menus and branding for Quo Vadis restaurant Soho. He has designed a range of packaging and ceramics for the Fine Cheese Company and also wine labels for Gabb Family, Berry Bros & Rudd, and Fortnum & Mason. John has illustrated several food and historically themed books, as well as many magazines.
https://www.instagram.com/john.broadley.77/

Flavia Z. Drago was born and raised in Mexico City. As a child, she wanted to be a mermaid. When that didn’t happen, she began her career as a graphic designer and a children’s book illustrator. She has an MA in Children’s Book Illustration from Cambridge School of Art and was shortlisted for the 2018 Sebastian Walker Award. She loves colours, textures, and shapes and enjoys creating them with different materials and a bit of digital sorcery. She lives between the UK and Mexico.
https://www.instagram.com/flavia_zdrago/

Steve Small has worked in animation for over thirty years as a director, designer, and animator and was BAFTA nominated for his animated sequences for the BBC drama Black Earth Rising. The work has varied from working on Disney features to designing and directing shorts, TV series, and commercials and he created the hugely successful Mr Bean animated series. Steve lives in London.
https://www.instagram.com/stevesmalluk/

Rachel Stubbs is a London-based illustrator who loves observing human behaviour and interaction. After studying illustration in Falmouth, Cornwall, she went on to work as a freelance illustrator before joining the Cambridge MA in children’s picture books to refresh her creative practice. Here she rediscovered the joy of drawing from life in her sketchbook, which has now become the foundation of all her work. Upon graduating from the MA, Rachel was awarded the Sebastian Walker Award for Illustration.
https://www.instagram.com/rachelstubbs_/

 

 

 

 

 

Branford Boase Award Shortlist Announced

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The shortlist for the 2021 Branford Boase Award has just been announced:

  • When Life Gives You Mangoes
    by Kereen Getten, edited by Sarah Odedina (Pushkin Children’s Books)
  • Witch
    by Finbar Hawkins, edited by Fiona Kennedy (Zephyr)
  • And the Stars Were Burning Brightly
    by Danielle Jawando, edited by Jane Griffiths (Simon and Schuster)
  • A Kind of Spark
    by Elle McNicoll, edited by Eishar Brar (Knights Of)
  • Run, Rebel
    by Manjeet Mann, edited by Carmen McCullough (Penguin)
  • Orphans of the Tide
    by Struan Murray, edited by Ben Horslen, illustrated by Manuel Sumberac (Puffin)
  • The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates
    by Jenny Pearson, edited by Rebecca Hill and Becky Walker, illustrated by Rob Biddulph (Usborne)

 

The judges are:

  • Zoey Dixon, YLG Librarian of the Year 2020
  • Scott Evans, teacher, consultant and founder of TheReaderTeacher.com
  • Natasha Radford of Chicken and Frog bookshop, Brentwood
  • Liz Hyder, author of Bearmouth, winner of the 2020 Branford Boase Award.

The panel is chaired by Julia Eccleshare, children’s director of the Hay Festival.

Julia Eccleshare, co-founder of award and chair of the judges says, “The range of stories and voices on this year’s shortlist is thrilling. Each year the Branford Boase Award highlights the most exciting new talent and most gifted editors, and it regularly identifies changes in the direction of fiction for children. These seven books showcase all that children’s fiction can be. Here are stories that explain and provoke; reassure and challenge; that present the world through different eyes, or make us recognise what we knew but didn’t understand; and, of course, they entertain, all readers, and on repeated readings.”

The winner of the Branford Boase Award will be announced on Thursday 15 July. The winning author receives a cheque for £1,000 and both author and editor receive an inscribed plaque.

UKLA Book Awards 2021 – The Shortlists

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The Shortlists in full 

 3-6 

7-10+ 

11-14+ 

Information Books 3 -14+ 

12 teachers nominated from the 70 involved in the shortlisting will now form the final judging panel and have the challenging task of reading all the shortlisted books in all categories. The winner’s announcement will take place at the Virtual UKLA International Conference on July 2nd but it is hoped that a live celebration and presentation of the awards will take place later in the year.

Carnegie and Greenaway Shortlists

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The longlists for the Carnegie and Greenaway Awards (announced last month)—each containing 20 titles—have now been whittled down to shortlists consisting of 8 books contending for each award.

The shortlisted titles are as follows:
Titles marked with  have been ACHUKA Book of the Day picks.

2021 CILIP Carnegie Medal

  1. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo (Hot Key Books)
  2. The Girl Who Speaks Bear by Sophie Anderson, illustrated by Kathrin Honesta (Usborne)
  3. The Girl Who Became A Tree by Joseph Coelho, illustrated by Kate Milner (Otter-Barry Books)
  4. On Midnight Beach by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick (Faber)
  5. Run, Rebel by Manjeet Mann (Penguin Random House Children’s)
  6. Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds (Knights Of)
  7. The Fountains Of Silence by Ruta Sepetys (Penguin Random House Children’s)
  8. Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk (Penguin Random House Children’s)

2021 CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal

  1. Starbird illustrated and written by Sharon King-Chai (Two Hoots)
  2. The Bird Within Me illustrated by Sara Lundberg and translated by B. J. Epstein (Book Island)
  3. It’s A No-Money Day illustrated and written by Kate Milner (Barrington Stoke)
  4. How The Stars Came To Be illustrated and written by Poonam Mistry (Tate Publishing)
  5. Hike illustrated and written by Pete Oswald (Walker Books)
  6. I Go Quiet illustrated and written by David Ouimet (Canongate)
  7. Arlo The Lion Who Couldn’t Sleep illustrated and written by Catherine Rayner (Macmillan Children’s Books)
  8. Small In The City illustrated and written by Sydney Smith (Walker Books)

YA Book Prize 2021 Shortlist

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The YA Book Prize 2021 shortlist…

The 10 books in the running to win this year’s overall £2,000 award are:

 

This year, the third ever YA Book Prize Special Achievement Award is given to “the Queen of UK YA”, Malorie Blackman, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first novel in her seminal YA series, Noughts & Crosses.