Little Rebels Award Shortlist

The Little Rebels Children’s Book Award is now in its 7^th year. The Award recognises fiction for ages 0-12 which promotes or celebrates social justice and equality. The shortlist for this rather wonderful award has just been announced, and is as follows:

Across the Divide by Anne Booth – Catnip Publishing

Freedom by Catherine Johnson – Scholastic

The Ghost and Jamal by Bridget Blankley – Hope Road Publishing

The King Who Banned the Dark by Emily Haworth-Booth – Pavilion Children’s Books

The New Neighbours by Sarah McIntyre – David Fickling Books

Running on Empty by S E Durrant – Nosy Crow

Tomorrow by Nadine Kaadaan – Lantana Publishing

Small, independent publishers figure strongly on the shortlist, including titles from HopeRoad and Lantana Publishing. Anne Booth makes her second Little Rebels Award appearance (Girl With A White Dog was shortlisted in 2015) and former Little Rebels Award judge, Catherine Johnson, is shortlisted for her historical fiction novel, Freedom, an account of the UK’s role in the slave trade which takes the 1781 Zong Massacre as its cue.

Fen Coles, Co-Director of Letterbox Library, said of the shortlist: “From a king who bans the dark to a tower block community fearful of the ratty (!) newcomers, the Little Rebels Award shortlist demonstrates again that weighty topical themes can be brought to the youngest minds in ways which are playful, provocative, thoughtful and fun. Social divisions, conflict, the rise in far right parties and ideologies, threats to democratic rule as well as very home-grown human rights abuses such as the Windrush scandal are all ‘live’ topics which children are hearing about through ubiquitous social medias. The Little Rebels titles continue to offer young people and children texts to help them navigate, question and make sense of the fractured world which surrounds them”.

The winner of this year’s Little Rebels Award will be announced on July 10^th at an award ceremony, hosted in the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education’s new Literacy Library, Southwark.