Children's Book Award 2024 winners announced

Press Start! Game On, Super Rabbit Boy! written and illustrated by Thomas Flintham and published by Nosy Crow has won the Federation of Children's Book Group (FCBG) Children's Book Award 2024. 

The award ceremony in Birmingham was attended by children from the local FCBG groups, who had voted to help choose the winners. The children also presented the awards, helped up by Winnie the Witch illustrator Korky Paul, together with Winnie and Wilbur!

Winners of the Children's Book Award:

Overall Winner of the Children's Book Award 2024
Press Start! Game On, Super Rabbit Boy! written and illustrated by Thomas Flintham, published by Nosy Crow

Winner of the Books for Younger Children's category
Gigantic, written and illustrated by Rob Biddulph and published by HarperCollins

Winner of the Books for Younger Readers' category
Press Start! Game On, Super Rabbit Boy! written and illustrated by Thomas Flintham, published by Nosy Crow

Winner of the Books for Older Readers' category
The Final Year, written by Matt Goodfellow and illustrated by Joe Todd-Stanton, and published by Otter-Barry Books

Korky Paul (left), Winnie the Witch and Wilbur help present winner Thomas Flintham with his award. Image by David Bartlett.

Among the 90 guests at the ceremony were children from many of the local groups of the FCBG who had voted and who made all the presentations on the day, helped by Korky Paul, Winnie the Witch and Wilbur (winners themselves back in 1988).

The shortlisted authors and illustrators receive a portfolio of words and pictures from the voting children inspired by each book.  Thomas Flintham thanked the children for his awayr.  "A big thank you again for all the readers - it is why we do what we do, so thank you."

Sarah Stuffins, CBA coordinator, added:  "As ever, the children have spoken! And this year have chosen a brilliantly accessible book that bursts with fun and practically fizzes off the page. Inspiring the love of reading for pleasure - and highlighting its importance to child development - remains a key aim of the award."

The winning books were chosen from 700 books were submitted by the publishers for reading and voting. In the first round, to choose the Top 10, the children submitted 47,000 votes with a further 30,000 votes submitted by FCBG groups and through online voting to choose the winners.

You can find a recording of the event on YouTube.  

The full shortlist for the Children's Book Award 2024 

Books for Younger Children

Gigantic by Rob Biddulph (HarperCollins)

The Fastest Tortoise in Town - written by Howard Calvert and illustrated by Karen Obuhanych (Walker Books)

The Princess and The (Greedy) Pea by Leigh Hodgkinson (Walker Books)

The Big Dreaming - written by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Daniel Egneus (Bloomsbury)

Books for Younger Readers

Marv and The Killer Plants - written by Alex Falase-Koya and illustrated by Paula Bowles (OUP)

Press Start! Game On, Super Rabbit Boy! by Thomas Flintham (Nosy Crow)

Adventure Mice: Otter Chaos - written by Philip Reeve and illustrated by Sarah McIntyre (David Fickling Books)

Books for Older Readers

Deadlock by Simon Fox (Nosy Crow)

The Final Year - written by Matt Goodfellow and illustrated by Joe Todd-Stanton (Otter-Barry Books)

Code Name Kingfisher by Liz Kessler (Simon and Schuster)