Children's book award goes from strength to strength

The Oxfordshire Book Award began in 2007 as the West Oxfordshire Book Award with five secondary schools taking part...

Children’s book award goes from strength to strength

The Oxfordshire Book Award began in 2007 as the West Oxfordshire Book Award with five secondary schools taking part. Following much press attention, the following year the Oxfordshire Book Award was launched with three primary and 18 secondary schools taking part. Now in its fifth year, there are currently 28 primary and 22 secondary schools participating which culminate in an award ceremony held in Abingdon in October.

Winning authors who have attended include Ally Kennen, Michael Rosen, Nick Sharratt, Rachel Ward, Michael Morpurgo, Axel Scheffler, Malorie Blackman, Patrick Ness, Nadia Shireen and Tony Ross.

Students read and nominate books they would like to see shortlisted, and then read and score each shortlisted book they would like to see win an award in each of the three categories. Primary school students vote for Best Primary Book and Best Picture Book and Secondary School students vote for the third category – Best Secondary Book. This year the contenders are:

Best Picture Book

The Really, Really, Really Big Dinosaur Book – Richard Byrne

Little Nelly’s Big Book – Pippa Goodhart and Andy Rowland

A Bus Called Heaven – Bob Graham

Best Primary Book

Wonder – R.J. Palacio

Four Children and it – Jacqueline Wilson

The Abominables – Eva Ibbotson

Best Secondary Book

Butterfly Summer – Anne-Marie Conway

Hero on a Bicycle – Shirley Hughes

Hitler’s Angel – William Osborne