Bolton School is delighted to have hosted an event celebrating local children’s love of reading and enthusiasm for the books shortlisted in the Bolton Children’s Fiction Award 2024. These books have been selected as representing some of the very best in current children’s fiction.
On the Celebration Day, students had the opportunity to meet Lily Bailey, author of ‘When I See Blue’, in person. In her session, they heard her speak about her writing inspiration and her experiences with OCD. She also read an excerpt from the sequel, ‘When I Feel Red’!
SF Said, prize winning author of ‘Tyger’ (which is currently shortlisted for the prestigious Yoto Carnegie Medal) joined the audience on a live video conference call for his session. As well as discussing his book, he spoke about the importance of representation in books and how the landscape of children’s literature has changed for the better in his lifetime.
Phil Earle, author of the third Shortlisted book ‘While the Storm Rages’, was promoting his latest book ‘Northern Soul’ at the time of the Celebration Day, and therefore was unfortunately unable to attend. However, he did send a video message to welcome everyone to the event. Storyteller Gav Cross also stepped into the breach and entertained everyone with a tale of WWII in character as an ARP Marshall in Liverpool, based around Phil’s book.
There was a pop-up bookshop run by Ebb & Flo Books, which offered pupils the opportunity to buy copies of the Shortlisted books and other books by the authors. Children could also have their books signed by Lily Bailey!
Bolton School’s Year 6 Junior Boys and Junior Girls, voracious Key Stage 3 readers in in the Senior Schools, Year 6s from Devonshire Road Primary and other local Secondary Schools’ Key Stage 3 Book Clubs were all in attendance for this wonderful celebration of reading.
Bolton School’s Library staff said: ‘We always see a pleasing increase in enthusiasm for reading other books written by the participating authors after the children have met them.’
Each year, the Bolton Children’s Fiction Award sees Bolton School Library staff read and select outstanding novels and then ask local students to read and review the shortlist. However, following consultation with participating local schools, the award now has a different format to previous years.
The shortlist is now just three books, selected by the Bolton School Library staff to stretch pupils’ reading experiences and to introduce them to new authors and genres. The usual celebration day has been moved earlier in the school year, instead of taking place on the day the winner is revealed, allowing pupils to find out more about the authors and books while there is still time to read and vote!
Students participating in the Award will vote for their favourite novel in May and the winning author will be announced in the summer term. At this point the 2025 longlist of six books will be announced and students will be encouraged to read the books over the holidays in order to help to choose the three-book shortlist for 2025, to be revealed in October.
Read about the launch of BCFA 2024 and find out more about the 2024 shortlisted books
