The Booker Prize Foundation has announced a major new literary award, the Children's Booker prize, which will offer £50,000 for the best fiction written for readers aged eight to 12. The inaugural winner will be announced in early 2027, with the prize opening for submissions in spring 2026.
In a first for a Booker award, the winner will be chosen by a panel that includes both adults and children. Children's author and current children's laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce will chair the judging panel, joined by two other adult judges who will help select a shortlist of eight books. Three child judges will then be recruited to help decide the winner.
The foundation will also gift 30,000 copies of shortlisted and winning books to children each year, working with partners including the National Literacy Trust, The Reading Agency, Bookbanks and the Children's Book Project. The initiative comes amid reports that children's reading for pleasure is at its lowest level in 20 years.
Cottrell-Boyce said the award would make it easier for children to discover books they enjoy. "Every child deserves the chance to experience the happiness that diving into a great book can bring," he said. "By inviting them to the judging table and by gifting copies of the nominated books, it will bring thousands more children into the wonderful world of reading."
The prize has been welcomed by leading children's authors, including former children's laureates Malorie Blackman, Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Morpurgo, Cressida Cowell, Anne Fine and Joseph Coelho. The prize will run in partnership with the AKO Foundation, a grant-making charity focused on improving education, supporting the arts and tackling the climate emergency.
Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, described the award as "the most ambitious endeavour we've embarked on in 20 years." She added: "It aims to be several things at once: an award that will champion future classics written for children; a social intervention designed to inspire more young people to read; and a seed from which we hope future generations of lifelong readers will grow."
