Huw Aaron has been named Overall Winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for his picture book Sleep Tight, Disgusting Blob, as voted for by Waterstones booksellers.

The Prize, now in its 22^nd year, consists of £5,000 and the promise of ongoing commitment to the winner’s writing and illustrating career, making it one of the most valuable and prestigious children’s book awards in the UK.

Last year’s winner, The Café at the Edge of the Woods by Mikey Please, went on to be named Waterstones Children’s Book of the Year in December, finishing the year as our bestselling picture book of 2025.

Bea Carvalho, Head of Books, Waterstones, says: “Huw Aaron is a storyteller and illustrator of staggering talent, a new voice to be seriously excited about: we are extremely proud to name him the overall winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2026. Booksellers everywhere hailed Sleep Tight, Disgusting Blob an instant bedtime story classic, falling in love with Huw’s dreamy, painterly style and sweet rhyming text, and relishing the joy that it brings to little ones at bookshop story times. This is a gorgeously cosy tale which puts an adorable spin on all things spooky with bags of charm and a hilarious and monstrously cute supporting cast. Blob is a character for the picture book hall-of-fame: we can’t wait to share his delightful story with children everywhere as the winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2026 alongside our brilliant category winners, Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree and A Language of Dragons.”

Huw Aaron was nominated not only for his winning title, Sleep Tight, Disgusting Blob in the Illustrated Books category, but also forUnfairies in the Younger Readers category, marking the first time in the award’s history that an author has been shortlisted for two different titles at the same time.

Huw is a Welsh cartoonist, author, and illustrator from Swansea, now living in Cardiff. After a short and fairly hopeless career in finance, Huw found a niche as a cartoonist, producing joke cartoons for, among others, Private Eye, Prospect and The Spectator and presented the weekly art programme, Cer i Greu on S4C.

The winner of the Younger Readers category is Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree by Janeen Hayat, a warm and human contemporary story following the budding friendship between two girls, Evie and Maryam, with flashbacks to Evie and Maryam’s family during the Partition of India. Following in the footsteps of a previous Waterstones Children’s Book Prize winner (The Cats We Meet Along the Way), Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree won the Guppy Books Open Submission competition in 2023.

Janeen Hayat grew up in Florida and now lives in London. She’s half-Pakistani, half-New-Yorker, a lapsed lawyer, teacher, Muslim and Catholic. She is passionate about creating characters that are many things at once because she knows she is not alone in being a tangled mass of identities, always changing. When she’s not writing, she is advocating for an education system that gives every child a fair chance.

Rachel from Waterstones Canterbury describes Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree as a “fascinating piece of history that isn’t written about enough”, and Morag from Waterstones Edinburgh really enjoyed the setting of this story and that there are “family mysteries and secret codes to solve”, whilst Kitty from Waterstones Weybridge says “each chapter left me wanting more”.

The winner of the category for Older Readers, A Language of Dragons by S.F. Williamson, is set in an alternate 1920s London. As civil war threatens a fragile truce between humans and dragons, Vivien Featherswallow’s parents are arrested. So when a lifeline is offered in the form of a mysterious ‘job’, she grabs it. Arriving at Bletchley Park, Viv discovers that she has been recruited as a codebreaker helping the war effort – if she succeeds, she and her family can all go home again. If she doesn’t, they’ll all die.

S.F. Williamson is originally from Kent and now lives in France. She is fascinated by the way languages are born and was surrounded by them long before she undertook a degree in French and Italian. She has always known that languages are creatures that live and move and breathe, and as a child she learned that speaking them meant accessing ideas, traditions and people she would only otherwise know from a distance.

Previous Winners of the Prize

•  2025 The Café at The Edge of the Woods by Mikey Please
•  2024 Greenwild: The World Behind the Door by Pari Thomson
•  2023 The Cats We Meet Along the Way by Nadia Mikail
•  2022 The Last Bear by Hannah Gold
• 2021 A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll
• 2020 Look Up! by Nathan Bryon (author) and Dapo Adeola (illustrator)
• 2019 The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Raúf
• 2018 The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• 2017 The Girl of Ink & Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
• 2016 My Brother Is a Superhero by David Solomons
• 2015 Blown Away by Rob Biddulph
• 2014 Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell
• 2013 Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher
• 2012 The Pirates Next Door by Jonny Duddle
• 2011 Artichoke Hearts by Sita Brahmachari
• 2010 The Great Hamster Massacre by Katie Davies
• 2009 The Thirteen Treasures by Michelle Harrison
• 2008 Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls
• 2007 Darkside by Tom Becker
• 2006 The Diamond of Drury Lane by Julia Golding
• 2005 The Cry of the Icemark by Stuart Hill

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)

The shortlists for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2019 (announced today) are as follows:

Illustrated Books:

• The Girls by Lauren Ace and Jenny Løvlie (Little Tiger Press)
• Mini Rabbit Not Lost by John Bond (HarperCollins)
• Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison (Penguin)
• The King Who Banned the Dark by Emily Haworth-Booth (Pavilion)
• Julian Is A Mermaid by Jessica Love (Walker Books)
• 100 Dogs by Michael Whaite (Penguin)

Younger Fiction:

• The House With Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson (Usborne)
• The Train To Impossible Places by P.G. Bell (Usborne)
• Brightstorm by Vashti Hardy (Scholastic)
• The Mystery Of The Colour Thief by Ewa Jozefkowicz (Head of Zeus)
• The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Raúf (Hachette Children’s)
• The Boy Who Grew Dragons by Andy Shepherd (Templar)

Older Fiction:

• The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (Egmont)
• Children Of Blood And Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (Pan MacMillan)
• A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos (Europa Editions)
• The Truth About Lies by Tracy Darnton (Little Tiger Press)
• Me Mam. Me Dad. Me. by Malcolm Duffy (Head of Zeus)
• Boy 87 by Ele Fountain (Pushkin)

Congratulations to all involved with the shortlisted titles.

The winners will be announced at an evening reception at Waterstones Piccadilly (London), Europe’s largest bookshop, on Thursday 21^st March, 2019. The winner of each category will receive £2000, with the overall winner receiving an extra £3000. In the event that the prize is awarded to a partnership, then the prize money will be split equally between the joint winners.

First awarded in 2005, the Prize has evolved into one of the most prestigious accolades for children’s books in the UK.  Now in its fifteenth year and with its shortlists exploring some highly topical subjects, the Prize shows its enduring relevance as a formidable platform for emerging talent. 

Last year’s winner, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, shot to the top of the bestseller charts after the announcement and saw an increase in sales of over 900% across the Waterstones estate.

Florentyna Martin, Waterstones Children’s Buyer says: “This year’s list showcases an exploration of wide topics including world-folklore, black history, mental health, refugees and the world around us, through dynamic forms of poetry, fables and sweeping fantasies. It is a truly enthralling time for children’s writing, and our booksellers have keenly chosen shortlists that they are inspired to share with readers and, in doing so, recognise the creators who will shape the future of children’s stories.”

James Daunt, Waterstones Managing Director says: “We are immensely proud of our Children’s Book Prize. It has chosen unfailingly wonderful books and in so doing propelled the careers of a succession of exceptional authors. Who knows how many might otherwise not have achieved such success? The Prize is the work of our booksellers and represents Waterstones at its very best.”

All the shortlisted titles will have “Shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2019” added to their listings entry over the next few days and we will be highlighting several of the titles during the six weeks leading up to the category and overall winners announcement on 21st March.

Previous Winners of the Prize are:

• 2005 The Cry of the Icemark by Stuart Hill
• 2006 The Diamond of Drury Lane by Julia Golding
• 2007 Darkside by Tom Becker
• 2008 Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls
• 2009 The Thirteen Treasures by Michelle Harrison
• 2010 The Great Hamster Massacre by Katie Davies
• 2011 Artichoke Hearts by Sita Brahmachari
• 2012 The Pirates Next Door by Jonny Duddle
• 2013 Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher
• 2014 Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell
• 2015 Blown Away by Rob Biddulph
• 2016 My Brother is a Superhero by David Solomons
• 2017 The Girl of Ink & Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
• 2018 The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

It was fantastic to see the hashtag for this prize (#WCBP) trending on Twitter yesterday – testimony both to the level of interest the general public now gives to children’s books and the push and publicity that Waterstones has brought to this signficant award.

Rob Biddulph was announced as the overall winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize at the booksellers’ Piccadilly HQ with his picture book, Blown Away!

The Waterstones Children’s Book Prize is now one of the biggest children’s book awards in the country. There are three shortlists for the Best Illustrated Books, Best Fiction for Teenagers and Best Younger Fiction, with category winners as well as an overall winner.

Melissa Cox (Head of Children’s Buying) had this to say of the winner: “The test of a good picture book is not how good it is on first reading, but how enjoyable it is on its fiftieth. Blown Away more than delivers – its whimsical, madcap plot engages immediately and its rhythmic text drives the story along while the illustrations charm and thrill on every page. It is truly wonderful, and a very worthy winner.”

James Daunt, Waterstones MD, said: “This year we have another wonderfully inspiring Prize that is testament to the extraordinary vibrancy and creativity in children’s publishing.”

Every one of the winning books’ Amazon reviews is a 5-star recommendation. Rob Biddulph is art director for the Observer Magazine and a winner of the PPA Designer of the Year Award. Blown Away is published by HarperCollins.  The Waterstones Children’s Book Prize Prize champions new and emerging talent in children’s books. It has been running for 11 years and this is only the second time a picture book has been selected as the winner.

The winner of best young fiction category was Robin Stevens with Murder Most Unladylike, the first in the author’s series of boarding school mysteries, featuring schoolgirls Daisy Wells and Holly Wong of Deepdean School for Girls. The second Wells & Wong Mystery, Aresenic For Tea, was published in January and the third, First Class Murder, is due in July. The books are published by Corgi.

Stevens has a very serviceable responsive website, with some interesting author facts on the About Me page.

The winner of the teenage category was Half Bad by Sally Green, the first title in a series that Penguin have high hopes of becoming a franchise in the style of The Hunger Games. The momentum is building well and the second title in the sequence, Half Wild, has just been published.

The other titles on the shortlists, which included recent YA Book Prize winner Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill, were well-chosen and superbly presented and publicised by Waterstones. The one book that I feel has been strangely overlooked by this award, and by the other prize that focuses on emerging talent, the Branford Boase Award, is Close To The Wind by Jon Walter (published in hardback by David Fickling Books last summer and now available in paperback), a novel that I continue to enthusiastically recommend whenever the opportunity arises.

via Rob Biddulph’s ‘Blown Away’ wins the 2015 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize | Waterstones.com Blog.

A visual reminder of the books in contention for the 2015 Waterstones Children’s Books prize…