Children will help judge the new prize along with children’s laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce • ‘The Children’s Booker prize will tell kids that they matter’: Frank Cottrell-Boyce The Booker prize foundation has launched a major new literary award, the Children’s Booker prize, offering £50,000 for the best fiction written for readers aged eight to 12. The new award will launch in 2026, with the first winner announced in early 2027. It will be decided by a mixed panel of adult and child judges, a first for a Booker award. The inaugural chair of judges will be Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the children’s author and current children’s laureate. He will be joined by two other adult judges, who will help select a shortlist of eight books before three child judges are recruited to help decide the winner. Continue reading...

Cover illustration © 2025 Louie Stowell In a week that has seen me playing what even I consider to be excessive amounts of Pokémon Go for reasons that are entirely logical to me but quite possibly …