Red House Book Award Winners

At the weekend yet another award for books was announced and there are now even more award winning books to be read. This award, the Red House Book Award is different however, for the books are voted for solely by the children who read them.

From a shortlist that covered books for Younger Children (i.e. picture books), Books for Younger Readers and Books for Older Readers a winner was chosen from each category and then one of these went on to become the overall winner. The selection this year was very strong and I imagine that competition was fierce as each of the books shortlisted is excellent, children in my school have been desperate to read them having seen them all on the bookmarks and website!

For Younger Children the winning title was Bottoms Up by Jeanne Willis, illustrated by Adam Stower, an illustrator the children in Year 2 have had the opportunity to meet during Book Week, helping him to create some wonderful alien monsters! This book finds a toddler demanding to know why he should wear pants when animals don't have to! After all do piglets wear panties? Or puppies or bears? Do fox cubs wear boxers? No, nobody cares! Full of fantastically funny pictures of animals in pants this is a book full of laughter and fun with some great rhymes too. A wonderful story book for very young readers.

Younger Children voted for Tanya Landman's Monday's are Murder - perhaps they were thinking of the hardship of going into school bright and early on a Monday morning after a later than usual bedtime at the weekend?? This story however is about a young girl, Poppy Fields on an activity holiday with her friend Graham on a remote Scottish island. When their instructor has a fatal accident, the first of many Poppy finds herself investigating. A thrilling action, adventure story that will have readers hooked.

Older readers chose The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins as their winning title. This story, set in the very near future centres around a reality television show. Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to take part in a live event called the Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed. Sixteen-year-old Katniss has promised to take her sister’s place in the games but sees it as a death sentence. She has been close to death before and for her, survival is second nature, but will she manage to stay alive? This story may be unsettling but it is totally gripping and a great read for older readers warning them of the extremes that reality television could one day reach!

The Hunger Games was also the overall winner. So to start the week here are some great books to look out for and stack up ready for a half term read...

The team Armadillo magazine offer our congratulations to Red House and the Federation of Children's Book Groups for another fantastic book award and to all the authors, those longlisted, shortlisted and the winners!