The Awesome Book Awards

Wandsworth Prep was delighted to take part in ’The Awesome Book Awards’ at Cranleigh School last week. This is a particularly special awards ceremony as the awards are judged by Upper School preparatory children. 

Over 2000 children from 65 schools took part judging five novels written by the very best British debut children’s novels. The five books included journeys in Tibet, to frozen lands of adventure and winged sky-ships; making friends with prehistoric beings, to navigating friendships at secondary school – there was truly something for everyone. 

The nine pupils from Years 5 and 6 had to read all five novels before the ceremony and individually vote five points to their favourite book down to 1 point for their least favourite. On collating all the scores, the children's overall winner for Wandsworth Prep was ‘Being Miss Nobody’ written by Tamsin Winter.   

On the evening of the event, the children entered the grand hall of Cranleigh – it was like the Oscars for authors! There were entertaining and inspirational speeches by all five shortlisted authors leaving everyone keen to begin penning our own novels…

After feasting on the food on offer and enjoying the contents of the goodie bags, the children, at last, discovered that the winning author was none other than the children's choice – Tamsin Winter for ‘Being Miss Nobody’!

After the ceremony, all pupils were able to meet the authors and get their books signed. It really was a very special evening. After speaking to the children involved, they have recommended that Wandsworth Prep should continue to support this event so the school already look forward to next year’s debut novels. Maybe in future years to come, one of Wandsworth Prep's pupils will be up on the stage with their own novel…

See some photos from The Awesome Book Awards 2019 in our photo gallery. All five books are now available in the Upper School library for everyone to enjoy.

Here are the books:

The Starman and Me by Sharon Cohen

Being Miss Nobody by Tamsin Winter

Running on the Roof of the World by Jess Butterworth

Brightstorm by Vashti Hardy

The Ice Garden by Guy Jones