This year a group of students and staff from the School of Education will be shadowing the 2015 UKLA Book Awards in three categories: ages 3-6, ages 7-11, ages 12-16+. There is still time to be involved and you can contact Hilary Westlake from the English team (H.J.Westlake@brighton.ac.uk) for more information. We will be using this blog to discuss the books and the shadowing process, so keep an eye out for related posts and feel free to add your own thoughts even if you’re not part of the shadowing group. You can view the longlisted titles here and the shortlist will be announced Friday 13th March.
The UKLA Book Awards are unique as they are judged by teachers who base their decisions on how well the shortlisted books worked in their classrooms!
The UKLA Book Awards seek to celebrate children’s books in order to:
-encourage teachers to increase their professional and personal knowledge of recently published high quality children’s books
-promote the place of books for young people in all educational settings from nursery to key stage 4
The books selected for the award will be titles that teachers can share with pupils as part of regular classroom experience, eg to:
-read for pleasure in the teacher’s read aloud programme to the whole class
-inspire extended response from learners (through discussion, creative interaction or understanding the wider curriculum)
-be the focus of study (set books, shared and guided reading)
-enhance all aspects of literacy learning and literary study
Selection committees and teacher judges are asked to look, first and foremost, for well-written, engaging ‘reads’ and, where appropriate, outstanding illustration and design.
The winning books for 2014 were:
Ages 3-6
This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen (Walker Books)
Ages 7-11
The Story of the Blue Planet by Andri Snær Magnason, translated by Julian Meldon D’Arcy Illustrated by Áslaug Jónsdóttir (Pushkin Press)
Ages 12-16+
Now is the Time for Running by Michael Williams (Tamarind Books)
