American author Suzanne Collins has won the Red House Children’s Book Award for her futuristic thriller The Hunger Games (Scholastic). She won both the older readers' category and took the overall prize in the award, which is owned and coordinated by the Federation of Children's Book Groups.
Her victory was announced today at an awards luncheon held at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, attended by 200 people, including more than 80 children from across the country, all of whom were involved in the voting.
Usborne is running a second Young Writers’ Award, giving children the opportunity to write a story with a real author. The award was created by Usborne last year to celebrate its fifth anniversary of publishing fiction. read more...
This year the five winning children will see their stories published as an e-book app, which will be available to download from the Apple iTunes App Store, in partnership with media company Sleepydog.
For the fourth year in succession statistics from the annual library survey conducted by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy show a rise in issues for children's books across the year. read more...
For 2008-9 - the National Year of Reading - children's fiction showed a 6.1% rise in lending over the year, with 80.1m issues. Lending for children's non-fiction showed a smaller rise of 0.7% at 5.3m issues. Meanwhile the number of children's books bought was up by 8.8% to 3.62m, with non-fiction up 3.3% at 0.79m.
The Welsh Books Council has announced the name of the winner of the prestigious Tir na n-Og English Award which recognises the exceptional quality of books with a Welsh background for children and young people. read more...
The 2010 English Award has been won by Paul Manship for his novel for young people, Dear Mr Author, a gripping and funny story set in the author’s home town of Newport.
The 2010 shortlist for the Branford Boase Award is announced today. The Award is given annually to the author of an outstanding debut novel for children.
The shortlists for the 2010 CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards were announced this morning. read more...
Eight novels, described as compelling survival stories, are competing for the Carnegie Medal and eight illustrated books are on the Kate Greenaway Medal shortlist.
The Just Read Campaign, an industry-wide initiative to promote reading for pleasure in schools, launches on Friday 23rd April with the aim of making every child in the UK a reader. read more...
Research (www.ukla.org/research) has shown that the child that reads for pleasure is more likely to achieve. Despite this government statistics and international research show that reading standards are not improving in the UK and that enjoyment of reading is declining.
The Story Museum in Oxford has launched a new website, described as ‘an essential free resource for parents, educators, arts and heritage professionals – and children themselves’ featuring stories and story-related activities. read more...
Four and five-year-olds in England will receive 1.4 million free books from September in the Booktime programme, managed by Booktrust in association with Pearson. Booktime book packs will contain Slowly, Slowly, Slowly, Said the Sloth by Eric Carle, as well as an abridged edition of Why Is the Sky Blue? (Ladybird), compiled and written by Geraldine Taylor and illustrated by Amy Schimler. read more...
The 2010 Summer Reading Challenge has a space theme. Called Space Hop, it will enable children to boldly go to new worlds, where they can discover the joy of reading and nurture a life-long love affair with reading and books. read more...
The Story Museum in Oxford has launched a new website, described as ‘an essential free resource for parents, educators, arts and heritage professionals – and children themselves’ featuring stories and story-related activities. 
The 2010 Summer Reading Challenge has a space theme. Called Space Hop, it will enable children to boldly go to new worlds, where they can discover the joy of reading and nurture a life-long love affair with reading and books.