The Award In Numbers...

Up to 150,000 votes cast a year

Over 1,100 books read each year

Over 100 publishing imprints submit books to the award

Over 12,000 books donated every year

Nearly 250 schools, reaching 130,000 children a year

The Children’s Book Award runs throughout the year.  There are two voting stages:

Full testing: this creates a Top 50 Pick of the Year, from which the Top Ten books are selected. Only Federation of Children’s Book Group members take part in this element of the award. The entire process takes a calendar year and currently runs from January to December.

Top Ten testing: this leads to the selection of the Category Winners and Overall Winner. Any child or young person across the UK can participate in this element of the award and vote on-line. This process takes approximately three months and currently runs from February until May.

Children and young people to the age of 18 take part across three age-related categories:

  • Younger Children (Picture Books)
  • Younger Readers (age 6 – 11)
  • Older Readers (age 10 – 18)

The Voting Process

How the full testing voting process works:

The full testing involves the reading, reviewing and rating of over 1,100 books published each calendar year in the UK.  Twelve of the Federation Children’s Book Groups participate, managed nationally by the volunteer Children’s Book Award Co-ordinator.

Due to the generosity of the publishers, one copy of every submitted book is sent to each of the twelve groups.  The volunteer group coordinators take the books in to member schools, member families and to libraries within their communities for the children and young people to read, review and rate.

At the end of the calendar year the Top 50 are finalised and the shortlist Top Ten is chosen.

The Top Ten voting process:

The Top Ten comprises 3 Categories:

  • Younger Children books (4 titles)
  • Younger Reader books (3 titles)
  • Older Reader books (3 titles)

Any child or young person within the UK can vote in the Top Ten to choose the Category Winners and the Overall Winner, whether they are members of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups or non-members.  Voting for the 2018 award is now open. Visit our voting page NOW to take part.

Each book is compared against the others within their category and ranked in preference order.

The results are input into a database from which the Category Winners and Overall Winner are selected by an algorithm that takes into account the ranking preferences of every book.

The Award Ceremony

The Award Ceremony

Children from all over the country are invited to the annual Award Ceremony to meet the Top Ten authors and illustrators and present them with their prizes. This is the highlight of the year for the children and for the short-listed authors and illustrators as the award culminates in a fun-filled celebration of the children’s favourites.  If there is sufficient space, other accompanied children may also be invited if they have participated in the voting.

Click here to see the video of the ceremony in 2017.

Each Top Ten author and illustrator receives a hand-made portfolio with reviews, pictures and poems written by any child who has taken part in the Top Ten testing, chosen by the volunteer group coordinators.


Silver trophy designed by Graham Stewart

The author and illustrator who is chosen as the Overall Winner also receives a personally engraved acorn and the engraved silver oak trophy for one year.

Every author and illustrator who wins a Category receives a prize to keep.

In 2017 this was a small silver bookmark.