How to get involved

We are currently choosing the shortlist for next year's award, and the books will be announced in the 2024 Autumn Term. If you have any ideas for titles to be considered do get in touch.

The criteria for a book to be considered are:

  • the book has to be published in the last 12 months
  • it is a first time author, at least for children
  • it is aimed at primary school aged children (7-11 year olds)   

After the shortlist has been announced

There will be five books and we need your help to choose the winner. If you are a primary school then read on, this is how it works

  1. Decide whether you want to join in. We need children to read the 5 books by May 2025 and then vote on them. This could be quite a committment and we would want you to make sure they know this,
  2. Decide how many children are going to take part. As each child will need to read each book then this will determine how many books you will need
  3. Get hold of as many copies as you need so each child has time to read the book. We have found that if everyone reads the same book at the same time then this makes for more interesting discussions, also demand for those books will be high as people realise this is important. (Newt Books offered a 30% discount on BBA orders last time, hopefully this will be repeated)
  4. Start reading! You decide how to do this, as in the point above it makes sense to read them all together and then discuss them all together. How this might work will be different for everyone  - perhaps a lunch time club, an after school zoom call, a breakfast meeting... 
  5. Collectively rank the books, either come to a consensus or vote individually and total the scores. 
  6. Go to the voting page and submit your results!
  7. We will hopefully hold a live event again to announce the winner and all children who have voted will be able to come along and hear from the author directly!