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Booker launches £50,000 Children’s Prize for fiction
New award will celebrate children’s literature and include child judges.
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Pranavi Sharma - Fri, 24, Oct 2025
- 02:35 EDT
- 14
The Booker Prize logo. / The Booker Prize
The Booker Prize Foundation has announced the launch of the Children’s Booker Prize, a new £50,000 award for fiction aimed at readers aged eight to twelve. Supported by the AKO Foundation, the prize marks the organisation’s first major new award in two decades.
The annual prize, set to begin in 2027, will recognize the best children’s fiction written in or translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. Uniquely, the winner will be chosen by a mixed panel of adult and child judges.
Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the UK’s Children’s Laureate, will serve as the inaugural chair of judges. “Stories belong to everyone,” he said. “Every child deserves the chance to experience the happiness that diving into a great book can bring.”
The Foundation’s announcement comes as children’s reading for pleasure reaches its lowest level in two decades, ahead of the UK’s planned National Year of Reading in 2026.
ALSO READ: Kiran Desai shortlisted for 2025 Booker Prize
Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, called the new award “the most ambitious endeavour we’ve embarked on in 20 years.” She said the aim is not only to champion future classics but also to inspire more young people to read. “It’s part of a movement,” she said, “a cause that children, parents, carers, teachers and everyone in the world of storytelling can get behind.”
At least 30,000 copies of shortlisted and winning books will be distributed free each year through schools, libraries and community partners. The Foundation will work with organisations such as the National Literacy Trust, The Reading Agency and the Children’s Book Project to reach young readers across the UK.
Philip Lawford, Chief Executive of AKO Foundation, said the partnership reflected the foundation’s mission to support education and youth wellbeing. “The evidence linking reading for pleasure to improved educational outcomes and greater social mobility is compelling,” he said.
The shortlist for the first Children’s Booker Prize will be announced in late 2026, with the winner revealed in early 2027. Authors will receive the same financial recognition as those honoured by the Booker and International Booker prizes.
To mark the launch, Booker Prize and Carnegie Medal-winning author Penelope Lively will deliver the keynote address at the 2025 Booker Prize ceremony in London, praising the new initiative. “Those who write for children especially need this – and it is needed equally for the children who read the books,” she said.
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