The Flight of the Mermaid

The organisers of the Queen of Teen Award are preparing for this year's award and will shortly be inviting nominations.

Described as 'the sparkliest, most glamorous and certainly the pinkest award in the world of fiction' the Queen of Teen Award was founded in 2008 to celebrate writers for the tween and teen market. The first competition was a huge success, with tens of thousands of votes cast for a shortlist that included Meg Cabot, Cathy Cassidy, Jacqueline Wilson and the eventual winner Louise Rennison.

Tara Books, the independent publisher from Chennai, south India, has won the 2010 Bologna Ragazzi Award for the handmade children's title, Do!

The award, which will be presented at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in March, is designed to acknowledge publishing houses from the Arab countries, Latin America, Asia and Africa that show great innovative talent.

Debut author Katie Davies has won the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize 2010 for The Great Hamster Massacre (Simon and Schuster), a tale of a girl’s relentless quest for a pet hamster.

Frances Lincoln have announced their acquisition of Barn Owl Books.

Ann Jungman, a popular author, started Barn Owl Books in 1999, carefully selecting out–of-print titles remembered as good reads by teachers, parents and grandparents alike, bringing the books back into print for a new generation of readers. She has been doing this, almost single-handed, ever since. Frances Lincoln have been Barn Owl’s distributors from the start.