James Reckitt Hull Children’s Book Award 2019

Children across Hull schools will be reading some of the best new fiction courtesy of the James Reckitt Library Trust and Hull Schools Library Service.

Now in its twelfth year, the James Reckitt Hull Children’s Book Award introduces young people to new writers and titles they might not normally pick up.

This year's shortlist includes:

KS2 Award (7-11 year olds)

• The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club by Alex Bell
• The Bad Guys by Aaron Blabey
• The Creakers by Tom Fletcher
• Charlie and Me by Mark Lowery
• The Boy at the Back of the Blass by Onjali Q Rauf

KS3 (11 -14 year olds)

• Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow by Siobhan Curham
• Armistice Runner by Tom Palmer
• Mike by Andrew Norriss
• Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend
• Night Speakers by Ali Sparkes

Copies of the shortlisted titles are donated to all schools subscribing to the Hull Schools Library Service and the authors are invited to the city to work with the young people. Students can also achieve their Arts Award Discover by logging their thoughts and ideas for each of the books in a special award diary. Families will be able to access copies of the books through their local library.

For the first time ever both of the awards ceremonies will take place in Malarkey Park in East Park in June 2019 as part of The Big Malarkey Festival. The KS2 event is on Tuesday 25th June 2019 and the KS3 event is on Wednesday 26th June 2019.

Children are invited to hear from the writers, share their opinions of the books and choose their favourite title in an exciting live vote. The votes are collated on the day and a specially commissioned artwork is presented to the winning writer.

Dr Richard Heseltine, Chair of the Trust, said:

“We are delighted to have such a high calibre of writers on this year’s shortlist. We would like to extend our congratulations to all the authors and look forward to seeing how the children of Hull vote at the awards ceremonies taking place in June.

The James Reckitt Library Trust is proud to fund the Children’s Book Awards and help to introduce children to new titles that encourage a love of reading.”

For further information contact [email protected]