Beloved children’s book author Martin Waddell has been announced as the recipient of the 2024 An Post Irish Book Awards’ ‘Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award’.

Martin is the first children’s writer to receive the award, and is one of the most popular and beloved authors in the genre. With more than one hundred books to his credit and 25 million books sold worldwide, he is one of the most prolific and successful children’s writers. He is best known for Owl Babies, illustrated by Patrick Benson, and the Little Bear books, illustrated by Barbara Firth.

As the 2024 Lifetime Achievement honouree, Martin Waddell will join a host of other distinguished recipients including Sebastian Barry, Colm Tóibín, Maeve Binchy, Edna O’Brien, Anne Enright and Professor Roy Foster. The award was presented on 27th November at the 2024 awards ceremony in The Convention Centre, Dublin.

We are thrilled to see DHA so strongly represented by our children’s writers at The Week Junior Book Awards 2024. Jonathan Emmett was awarded Children’s Animals and Nature Book of the Year for The Tyrannosaur’s Feathers, illustrated by Stieven Van der Poorten (UCLan) and duo Laura Mucha and Ed Smith were awarded Book of the Year in the Non-Fiction category for Welcome to Our Table: A Celebration of What Children Eat Everywhere, illustrated by Harriet Lynas (Nosy Crow).

Among the shortlists were Catherine Rayner for her illustrations on The Bowerbird, text by Julia Donaldson (Macmillan) and Nikita Gill, whose work Animal Tales from India: Ten Stories from the Panchatantra with illustrations from Chaaya Prabhat (Nosy Crow) was shortlisted for both Children’s Audiobook for the Year and Children’s Book Cover of the Year, with the cover design by Manda Scott.

On the prize, Editorial director of The Week Junior, Anna Bassi said: “We’re delighted to honour these incredible books and their power to bring pleasure to children through words, pictures, ideas and imagination. The line-up boasts extraordinary stories, compelling characters, fascinating facts, incredible illustrations and useful advice. With awards for both fiction and non-fiction and subjects spanning everything from dinosaurs to the digestive system, there is something here for every young reader – even those who say they don’t like reading.”

We are so pleased to announce that Skrimsli by Nicola Davies, Move Like Water by Hannah Stowe, and The Panda’s Child by Jackie Morris and Cathy Fisher are on the Wainwright Prize longlists.

The Wainwright Prize was created in Alfred Wainwright’s name to showcase the growing genre of nature-writing in publishing and to celebrate and encourage exploration of the outdoors to all readers. With this year’s longlist, The Wainwright Prize hopes to provide a platform to bring many of the issues covered in the longlist to the forefront of political discourse.

The Panda’s Child and Skrimsli have been longlisted for the Children’s Writing on Nature and Conservation Prize, while Move Like Water has been longlisted for the Writing on Conservation Prize.

On this year’s longlist, the Prize Director Alastair Giles, said: “As we enter The Wainwright Prize’s second decade, the necessity to showcase and celebrate the very best of Nature and Conservation Writing has only strengthened. Although the plight of nature has never been more troubling, we have also witnessed a wave of enthusiasm from readers over the past few years, and we hope that The Wainwright Prize can fulfil its role to motivate people to reconnect with the environment, both physically and intellectually. We can’t wait to find out which books from our 2024 longlists will be shortlisted later this summer before we choose our eventual winners.’

The Prize’s shortlists will be announced on 15th August, and the winners will be announced on Wednesday 11th September at the Camley Street Natural Park.

Nicola Davies and Catherine Rayner have both been shortlisted for YOTO Carnegie Medals for their respective books Choose Love and The Bowerbird. 

Shortlisted for the medal in writing, Choose Love is a moving sequence of poems highlighting the experience of those forced to become refugees.  With superb illustrations by Petr Horáček, the collection provides insight into the real-life experiences of refugees forced to leave their homes.

The Bowerbird is the irresistible tale of Bert – a small bird with a very big heart and has been shortlisted for the medal in illustration. Written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Catherine Rayner, the book is a wonderful rhyming tale perfect for children.

The ceremony to announce the winners will take place on 20 June 2024. See the full shortlists here.

We’re delighted to see Laura Mucha and Michael Morpurgo on the The Ruth Rendell 2024 shortlist.

The Ruth Rendell Award was launched by ALCS and The National Literacy Trust and recognises an writer or author who has had the most significant influence on literacy in the UK over the past year. Previous winners include Andy McNab and Cressida Cowell, and the winner will be announced at a reception at Goldsmiths’ Centre in London on 22 February 2024.

On Laura Mucha’s work, the judges said: ‘Laura’s sensitivity is extraordinary and she is deeply committed to what she is doing. Thinking about the vulnerability of young people’s mental health at the moment, her work is so important.’

On Michael Morpurgo, judges said: ‘Michael is a fantastic ambassador for literacy. He is so passionate about libraries and he really puts the work in with trying to enact change.’

Congratulations to Nikita Gill on being longlisted for the Jhalak Prize 2023 in the Children’s and YA category for her empowering, feminist YA poetry collection These Are the Words, out now with Macmillan Children’s Books.

First awarded in March 2017, the Jhalak Prize and its new sister award Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize founded in 2020, seek to celebrate books by British/British resident BAME writers.