Spark! School Book Awards 2024-2025: Shortlists Announced!
16 January, 2025Congratulations to all the authors and illustrators shortlisted for this year’s Spark! School Book Awards.
Now in its fifth year, the Spark! School Book Awards were set up to introduce young readers to new authors, encourage them to read more widely and help primary and secondary schools create a buzz around reading. There are four age categories covering pupils in KS1 to KS3 and a guest category that changes every year. This year, the guest category is Information Books for 6-12 year-olds.
Panels of teachers and educationalists choose the shortlists, looking for well-crafted texts that reflect the diversity of school communities and that will ‘spark’ a response in young readers. The ultimate winners are chosen by the pupils in participating schools around the country. Sign up by 5pm on Friday 17th to be part of this year’s award. You can find out more about the award and the resources provided to support it here.
Shortlists 2024-25
Picture Fiction for Early Readers
Farah Loves Mangos by Sarthak Sinha (Flying Eye Books)
Gina Kaminski Saves the Wolf by Craig Barr-Green, illustrated by Francis Martin (Little Tiger)
If I Were Prime Minister by Trygve Skaug and Ella Oksta, translated by Rosie Hedger (Lantana Books)
Who Ate Steve? by Susannah Lloyd, illustrated by Kate Hindley (Nosy Crow)
Fiction for 7+
Dungeon Runners: Level 1 – Hero Trial by Kieran Larwood, illustrated by Joe Todd-Stanton (Nosy Crow)
Flora Stormer and the Golden Lotus by Isabella Harcourt (Orchard Books)
The Magician Next Door by Rachel Chivers Khoo, illustrated by Alice McKinley (Walker Books)
Oscar’s Lion by Adam Baron, illustrated by Benji Davies (Harper Collins Children’s Books)
Fiction for 9+
Angel of Grasmere by Tom Palmer (Barrington Stoke)
Birdie by J. P. Rose (Andersen Press)
Jakub’s Otter by Coral Rumble (Troika Books)
The Secret of Golden Island by Natasha Farrant (Faber & Faber)
Fiction for 11+
Here to Slay by Radhika Sanghani (Knights Of)
It All Started with a Lie by Denise Brown (Hashtag Press)
King of Nothing by Nathanael Lessore (Hot Key Books)
Wild East by Ashley Hickson-Lovence (Penguin)
Information Books 6-12
Into the Volcano: The Science, Magic and Meaning of Volcanoes by Catherine Ard, illustrated by Wenjia Tang (Flying Eye Books)
Me and My Hair by Kimberley Kinloch, illustrated by Jessica Gibson and Sandra Becker Borrée (Usborne Publishing Ltd)
Ultra Wild: An Audacious Plan to Rewild Every City on Earth by Steve Mushin (Allen & Unwin Children’s Books)
The World’s First Rollercoaster and Other Amazing Inventions by Mike Barfield, illustrated by Franziska Höllbacher (Templar Publishing)
The winning books will be announced at an online award ceremony in June 2025 – watch out for our winner announcement!
