The Alliance of Radical Booksellers (ARB) is delighted to announce that the winner of this year’s Little Rebels Children’s Book Award for Radical Fiction is Catherine Johnson for her book, Freedom (Scholastic 2018). The winner of the Little Rebels Children’s Book Award 2019 was announced at an event held in the CLPE (Centre for Literacy […]

On Tuesday 9th July Cressida Cowell, the international bestselling author and illustrator of the How to Train Your Dragon and The Wizards of Once series and the author of the Emily Brown picture books was crowned the Waterstones Children’s Laureate 2019–2021. Cowell was presented with the iconic silver Laureate medal by the outgoing Waterstones Children’s Laureate, Lauren Child, at a ceremony […]

Written by Juliette Forrest I’ve just finished as Writer in Residence at a primary school in Glasgow. I was there to assist a P7 class with their stories and encourage a culture of reading. The very first thing I wanted the children to know was that the room was a safe space where all thoughts […]

Written by Liz Flanagan When I do school visits, I often get asked, ‘How do you come up with your characters?’ I would love to say Milla was like me. In fact, I wish I was more like her! She’s cheerful, practical, loyal, has great ideas and is very resilient. However, in that first scene, […]

Giving school library staff the recognition they deserve The SLA School Librarian of the Year Award is the School Library Association’s prestigious honour to recognize the excellent work that is carried out in school libraries every day and highlight the best practice of those whose work is outstanding.  This year Ros Harding at The King’s […]

The winner of the 2019 Branford Boase Award for outstanding debut novel for children is Muhammad Khan for his YA novel I Am Thunder.  I Am Thunder chronicles the radicalisation of a young Muslim girl growing up in London, the choices she is presented with, and how she develops the confidence to make her own […]

How did Roger and Louise (aka Loulou) meet, and what made them leave Europe to live in America in the late 1920s? Both of my grandparents were born and raised in Geneva, Switzerland.  My grandfather met my grandmother when they were both painting ceramics in a factory in  Geneva. Along with friends, they moved to […]

THE 2019 WICKED YOUNG WRITER AWARDS, presented in association with the National Literacy Trust, last Thursday (20 June 2019) announced its winners during a ceremony involving 120 shortlisted finalists and their families and teachers at London’s Apollo Victoria Theatre, home of the award-winning musical WICKED. Amongst this year’s finalist entries were stories, poems and non-fiction […]

by Alison Tarrant The shortlist for the Information Book Award 2019 was released last month, with 10 books across three age categories – however, there are two opportunities for books to win overall, as there is a ‘Judges’ Overall Winner’ and a ‘Children’s Choice Overall Winner’. The Children’s Choice winners (there’s one for each age […]

a guest post by Ali Pye My children loved their picture books but there came a time when they wanted to try a wordier read but were not yet ready for middle grade, so we started to browse the young fiction shelves of bookshops rather than the picture book rails. Now I have my own […]