UKLA Book Awards 2016

The United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) have announced the shortlist for this year’s book awards – the only awards judged entirely by teachers! 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, and to 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, e.g. 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.

Six books have been selected for each age category: ages 3-6; ages 7-11, ages 12-16+. In addition to the judging criteria, the teacher judges will also take into account how successfully the books were used in their classroom and their students responses to the books.

The 2016 shortlist features a picture book for budding philosophers, 2 non-fiction titles in the ages 7-11 group, and an ages 12-16+ selection which includes the 2015 Costa Book Award winner amongst a group of titles which have already been gathering award nominations this year.

 

       

Ages 3-6

This Book Just Ate My Dog! by Richard Byrne (Oxford University Press)

The Something by Rebecca Cobb (Macmillan Children’s Books)

I am Henry Finch by Alexis Deacon and Viviane Schwarz (ill.)(Walker Books)

The Dad with 10 Children by Bénédicte Guettier  (Scribblers Books)

On Sudden Hill by Linda Sarah and Benji Davies (ill.) (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books)

Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion by Alex T Smith (Scholastic Children’s Books)

 

   

Ages 7-11

The Fish in the Bathtub by Eoin Colfer and Peter Bailey (ill.)(Barrington Stoke)

Hercufleas by Sam Gayton and Peter Cottrill (ill.)(Andersen Press)

The Imaginary by A.F Harrold and Emily Gravett (illustrator)(Bloomsbury)

The Boundless by Kenneth Oppel (David Fickling Books)

The Pilot and the Little Prince by Peter Sís (Pushkin Press)

Atlas of Adventures by Rachel Williams and Lucy Leatherland (ill.) (Wide Eyed Editions)

 

   

Ages 12-16+

The Door that Led to Where by Sally Gardner (Hot Key Books)

The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge (Macmillan Children’s Books)

There Will Be Lies by Nick Lake (Bloomsbury)

An Island of Our Own by Sally Nicholls (Scholastic Children’s Books)

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (Puffin)

The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick (Orion Indigo)

The winners of the award will be announced at the UKLA International Conference in July 2016.

 

Little Rebels Children’s Book Award 2016

 

The shortlist has been announced for the 2016 Little Rebels Children’s Book Award for Radical Fiction.

Six books are on the shortlist for the award, which recognises children’s fiction which promotes or celebrates social justice or equality. Gill Lewis is shortlisted for the third year in succession. She won the award in 2015 with Scarlet Ibis.

 

   

 

 

The shortlisted books are:

The Boy at the Top of the Mountain by John Boyne (Doubleday/Penguin Random House)

 I Am Henry Finch by Alexis Deacon and Vivianne Schwarz (ill.) (Walker Books)

The Little Bookshop and the Origami Army by Michael Foreman (Andersen Press)

I’m a Girl by Yasmeen Ismail (Bloombsury)

Gorilla Dawn by Gill Lewis (Oxford University Press)

Uncle Gobb and the Dread Shed by Michael Rosen and Neal Layton (ill.) (Bloomsbury Books)

Kerry Mason, Co-Director of Letterbox Library, said: ‘This was the first year that the shortlisters felt overwhelmed by choices. It seems that there is a taste right now for children’s books with a message, particularly where that message is communicated in an imaginative and original way. This year’s shortlist pokes fun at our institutions, brings corporate powers to their knees and ponders vast questions such as ‘who am I’? through the smallest of finches.’

The judges are Kim Reynolds, Wendy Cooling, Catherine Johnson and Elizabeth Laird.

The winner of the Little Rebels Award will be announced at the London Radical Bookfair. This year the event will take place on Saturday 7 May at Goldsmith’s University.