Congratulations to Peter Bently and Steven Lenton who have been named the Overall Winners of this year’s Children’s Book Award for their warm and witty picture book Octopus Shocktopus (Nosy Crow), which also won the Books for Younger Children category.

Commenting on this year’s Children’s Book Award, Coordinator Sarah Stuffins said, ‘A delightfully joyful winning. Congratulations to Peter and Steven, and all our other shortlisted authors and illustrators. I think we all need a fluorescent orange octopus in our lives!’

Established in 1980, the Children’s Book Award is the only national award voted for entirely by children from beginning to end. Set up and coordinated by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups, the award has often been the first to recognise the future stars of children’s fiction and previous winners include J. K. Rowling, Patrick Ness, Andy Stanton, Malorie Blackman, Anthony Horowitz and Michael Morpurgo, who has won a record four times.

To be crowned this year’s Overall Winner, Octopus Shocktopus overcame stiff competition from the winners of the Books for Younger Readers and Books for Older Readers categories. The Books for Younger Readers category was won by The Highland Falcon Thief, written by M G Leonard and Sam Sedgman, and illustrated by Elisa Paganelli (Macmillan Children’s Books), while the Books for Older Readers category was won by When the World Was Ours by Liz Kessler (Simon and Schuster).

 

See the full shortlist for the Children’s Book Award 2022 and find out how your pupils can get involved in choosing next year’s Children’s Book Award winners.