Writers' Advice Centre

A focus on literacy skills by parents and teachers is “actively undermining” efforts to get children reading for pleasure, new research by HarperCollins has suggested. Interesting 🤔 Illustration by Wacky Bee author Michelle Rothenberg Maiden 😍

The English Association has announced the winners for the 2026 English 4-11 Picture Book Awards. Winner fiction 4 - 7 A Winter’s Morning, winner non-fiction 4 - 7 Tuck Me In, winner fiction 7 - 11 The Great Bear, winner non-fiction 7 - 11 How to Save Your Granny from a Runaway Train and winner of the Margaret Mallett Award for children’s non-fiction, Leave the Trees Please. Congratulations to all 🥳🎉👏

The Jellyfish Jiggle by Caryl Hart, illustrated by Nicola Slater, has won the BookTrust Storytime Prize 2026 for the best book for children under five. Congratulations! 🥳🎉

The Children’s Booker Prize 2027 has opened for publisher submissions and launched a nationwide competition for children to become one of three child judges, as the first major new prize from the Booker Prize Foundation in two decades announces its adult judging panel. The prize, to be awarded annually from 2027 and supported by AKO Foundation, will celebrate the best contemporary fiction for children aged eight to 12 years old, written in or translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland ⬇️
https://thebookerprizes.com/the-childrens-booker-prize

The 2026 Henrietta Branford Writing Competition, the annual competition for young people which runs in conjunction with the Branford Boase Award, is now open. The competition aims to find and encourage writers of the future, something Henrietta was always keen to do. Anyone under the age of 19 can enter. This year’s competition theme is inspired by the book that won the Branford Boase Award in 2025, Glasgow Boys by Margaret McDonald - A place or a person I know very well.
https://branfordboaseaward.org.uk/the-henrietta-branford-writing-competition-2026/

The shortlist for the prestigious 2026 Branford Boase Award, given annually to the author and editor of the year’s outstanding debut novel for children is announced today. Seven “magnificent” books are on this year’s shortlist, a rom com, a horror story, thought-provoking contemporary stories for YA readers, a sci-fi thriller, and two rich, meaningful stories for pre-teen and early teen readers. Find out more ⬇️
https://branfordboaseaward.org.uk/shortlist-2026/

THE Axel Scheffler is back for the UK's biggest kids' books festival on Saturday 27 & Sunday 28 June. Check out the full party programme on their What's On page right now ➡️ https://londonkidslitfest.org/

Authors Juno Dawson and Andy Darcy Theo, Waterstones’ Lucy Jakes and Edinburgh International Book Festival’s Jodie Barnacle-Best are joining the judging panel for the YA Book Prize 2026.

The Wild Life of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals by award-winning author Mike Barfield, illustrated by Paula Bossio, was revealed as the winner of the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize 2025 at an award ceremony hosted by TV presenter Ben Shires at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford. Many congratulations 🙌🥳

For those of you who like to plan ahead, the 2027 Bologna Children’s Book Fair (BBCF) will take place from 5th to 8th April, one week earlier than this year’s event, with Poland as guest of honour 📚

Nearly a third of children cannot use books when they start school, with some even trying to swipe and zoom on the pages, a survey from Kindred Squared has shown. The research was part of their school readiness survey earlier this year, where more than half of teachers cited children’s and parents’ excessive screen time as a key reason for children not being “school ready”. Interesting 🤔