British Book Awards 2018

-
A quick post about the British Book Awards 2018.....
The winners of the British Book Awards 2018 (known as the Nibbies) were announced yesterday and in the childrens' categories, it was very exciting!

First, let me say hats off to Bloomsbury Children's Books for being honoured with the Children's Publisher of the Year. Bloomsbury |(known for being the home of Harry Potter) has brought out some incredible kids books this year, as always. Congratulations!

Author of the year went to the incredible Philip Pullman! Not just a children's author, of course, but the release of the first in his prequel series (to His Dark Materials) La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust firmly tipped the hat in his favour. (And it is stunning...so read it NOW if you haven't already.)

The Children's Book of the Year had joint winners this year...drumroll please.... and the winners are:
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: a powerful, honest, empathetic look at race relations, violence and the nuances of human nature as experienced through the lives of young people. Written as a YA novel, this is a very thought-provoking and moving read for adults, as well.
And....The Lost Words by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris; a stunning picture book format based on words evoking the natural word that have been removed from the Oxford Children's Dictionary. Poetic ponderings of each individual word are beautifully set with Morris' incredible illustrations. (You'll want two copies...one to keep and one to frame.) Powerful and thought-provoking in a different way.
We also have Axel Scheffler honoured as illustrator of the year. Scheffler's illustrations are those that gave us the Gruffalo, Zog, The Smartest Giant in Town... not to mention his own Pip and Posey and many, many others. Imaginative and simply delightful. Congratulations!!!!



Because I am a children's bookseller and love nothing more than haunting childrens' bookshops and seeing them rise to the fore, I want to give a big cheer to The Book Nook in Hove for winning Children's Bookseller of the Year! Very well done, you wonderful people...I am delighted for you.

Just look at this place!!! Don't you want to go there?

And that is about that, at least for the kids categories at the British Book Awards.
Stay tuned next week when we visit the Childrens' Books Ireland awards...so excited!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Rights of the Reader

-
Image
The Rights of the Reader; Daniel Pennac, illustrated by Quentin Blake Summer is here and we do encourage summer reading with numerous incentives and programmes. It is important for children (of all ages) to 'keep their reading up' outside of school time. This is the time when kids develop their own taste in books and can be free to read books of their own choosing. And this is the single most important factor in young people developing a lifelong reading habit. But how do we, as the 'gatekeepers' of kids reading, encourage them properly without running the risk of thrusting pressure and our own ideas on them? Do that and you'll run the risk of pushing them away from reading, and there are already so many distractions for the young reader to contend with that can tempt them elsewhere. Published by Walker Books; 9781406300918 In 1992, French writer Daniel Pennac originally published this little gem of a book; The Rights of the Reader. I highly recommend
Read more

The Summer of Lily and Esme by John Quinn....25 years

-
Image
This year marks the anniversary of the publication of an extraordinary book. In 1991, Poolbeg published The Summer of Lily & Esme by John Quinn and in the 25 years since, it has never been out of print. The Summer of Lily & Esme tells a quiet story, filled with compassion, friendship, memory and heart. It is the story of Alan, an 11-year-old boy who has moved from the city into a house in the countryside; in the middle of nowhere.The house is old and extremely large and immaculate; and there is a locked, boarded over attic room that is said to be haunted by the ghost of a young boy who died tragically. Alan is not too pleased with this move and becomes even less thrilled when he discovers his closest neighbours, in fact his only neighbours, are a pair of elderly sisters, Esme and Lily, who seem to be suffering from dementia.  When Alan falls down a hill of brambles and weeds, the sisters, who believe they themselves to be children, mistake Alan for their
Read more

Launch of Genesis by Eilis Barrett

-
Image
A week ago, I played a small part of the launch of Genesis , the much-anticipated sequel to Oasis by Eilis Barrett; this time at Charlie Byrnes Bookshop in Galway. Vinny Brown introduces Eilis Eilis is a remarkable young woman, as you might imagine since she is 18 years old and this is her second book. ( Oasis was published when she was 16.) Articulate and accomplished, it is a real privilege to know her, to hear her speak and to read her writing. Genesis author: Eilis Barrett publisher: Gill Books (8 September 2017 ISBN: 9780717174355 Genesis picks up the story of Quincy Emerson. She now finds herself a captive once again, in the maximum-security prison, the Colosseum as a security risk. Held in deplorable and brutal conditions in the prison, where anarchy rules and rival gangs wage a 'street war' of sorts, Quincy takes care to not make an enemy of either gang boss, while holding allegiance to no one but herself and her comrades on the outside. Food is scarce an
Read more