The Children’s Book Awards
Over the past year, children from our member schools have been taking part in voting for the Children’s Book Awards. Books from each of the three categories- Books for Younger Children, Books for Younger Readers and Books for Older Readers- are distributed so that our young readers can choose and share their opinion about a wealth of wonderful books, sent by publishers, voting on each on they read. This is the first stage of the testing process from which the top 10 books are selected and takes place over the whole year, with new books constantly being fed into schools as they arrive.
Once this stage is complete, the ‘Top 50 Pick of the Year’ are identified and from this, the magic Top 10 emerges! Children can then be involved in voting on one- or more- of the categories, ranking the books once they have read all those in a category to cast their votes for the awards. At each step of the process, it is the children’s votes that count, resulting in an award which actually gives voice to young readers!
Every year, children love being involved and take voting very seriously. They love discussing the books with their peers, often resulting in some very heated conversations, and feeling that their opinion matters. They really value having access to such a wonderful range of up-to-date titles and feel that it encourages them to try books which they might not otherwise have discovered. Here are some of their thoughts on being invloved!
E.S - I really liked taking part in this category. I loved the range of books and I felt an urgency to get them all read and chatting about them with other in my class that also read them. My favourite book was Dread Wood. I loved the mystery and found it quite scary in places.
L.L- It’s so exciting when new books appear and we are allowed to choose whatever we like. When the Top 10 are revealed, it’s brilliant when something you really liked has made it to that stage!
L.F - After we had read all of the books, we could then chat about what had happened - we were all very good to not give any spoilers and ruin it for others, but it was great chatting about what had happened in each story.
R.W- It’s great fun taking part in this award. I really enjoy hearing about what other members of the class are reading and deciding whether I might like to try it.
A.L - I liked reading through the books and thinking about which other children in my class/ group would like the book and who to recommend it to.
P.T- It’s sometimes hard to choose what to read first as I want to read everything! I think it’s really important that we are allowed to vote and say what we think about the books. Instead of teachers telling us what we should read, we can learn from each other!
On Saturday, we will discover who the winners are at the CBA ceremony, which is always the loveliest occasion. I have been lucky enough to attend quite a few of these over the years- with and without children- and it is always an absolute joy.
