Teachers choose their highlights of the year

Teachers from across Scotland have helped select the shortlist forthis year's UKLA Book Awards, highlighting outstanding books for children aged three to 16 years.

Part of the criteria is that the books selected can "enhance all aspects of literacy learning". The winners will be announced on June 30th at the UKLA International Conference, University of Strathclyde. Previous research carried out by members of UKLA (Cremin et al 2008) demonstrated the links between teachers' knowledge of children's books and the likelihood of pupils becoming successful readers. Despite this evidence, UKLA says that teachers are seldom given time to read new books or funding to purchase them when they do. This year's 7-11 years shortlist includes Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre's Pugs of the Frozen North; Reeve is also shortlisted for Railhead in the 12-16 years category. Gill Lewis, who won with her debut novel Sky Hawk in 2012, is also shortlisted for Gorilla Dawn and Katherine Rundell is included with The Wolf Wilder. Other shortlisted authors in this category include debut writers Ross Welford (Time Travelling with a Hamster) and SE Durrant for Little Bits of Sky. A powerful picture book has also been shortlisted in this category, Francesca Sanna's acclaimed The Journey, a story about a refugee family which teacher judges described as "taking children to new experiences outside their own". Alongside Philip Reeve's science fiction Railhead in the 12-16 years category is Jenny Valentine with Fire Colour One. The remaining shortlisted titles are by international authors including The Marvels written and illustrated by Brian Selznick and Orbiting Jupiter written by Gary. D. Schmidt - both US authors - and Canadian Susin Nielsen with The Reluctant Journal of Henry K Larsen, as well as Alaskan Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock's Carnegie longlisted debut, The Smell of Other People's Houses. In the 3-6 category are Benji Davies with Grandad's House, Emily Gravett with Tidy, the inaugural Amnesty CILIP Honour winner, Ross Collins, with There's a Bear on MY Chair, Roald Dahl Funny Prize winning Jim Field in a new partnership with Rachel Bright for There's a Lion Inside, and Lucy Ruth Cummings' debut, A Hungry Lion or A Dwindling Assortment of Animals. The enthusiastic judging discussions revealed how much teachers welcomed the opportunity to widen their knowledge of recent children's titles and enjoyed talking together in order to decide which books would best match the criteria for the award, said group leader Jess Anderson: "There have been so many great spin-offs from that initial decision to get involved: seeing teachers who had never been big readers catching the reading bug, avid readers who found a whole new treasure trove of books to keep them up reading till the small hours, colleagues queuing up to borrow the books and so many children inspired to share this reading journey with them." UKLA said that giving classroom practitioners the opportunity to read a number of new quality children's books is as important as finding an overall winner. 12 teachers nominated from the 55 involved will now form the final judging panel and have the challenging task of reading all the shortlisted books in all three age categories. The UKLA Book Award Shortlists in full: 3-6 Years The Lion Inside written by Rachel Bright and illustrated by Jim Field (Orchard Books) There's a Bear on MY Chair written and illustrated by Ross Collins (Nosy Crow) A Hungry Lion or A Dwindling Assortment of Animals written and illustrated by Lucy Ruth Cummins (Simon & Schuster) Grandad's Island written and illustrated by Benji Davies(Simon & Schuster) Tidy written and illustrated by Emily Gravett (Two Hoots) 7-11 Years Little Bits of Sky written by S.E Durrant and illustrated by Katie Harnett (Nosy Crow) Gorilla Dawn written by Gill Lewis(Oxford University Press) Pugs of the Frozen North written and illustrated by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre (Oxford University Press) The Wolf Wilder written by Katherine Rundell and illustrated by Gelrev Ongbico (Bloomsbury) The Journey written and illustrated by Francesca Sanna (Flying Eye Books) Time Travelling with a Hamster written by Ross Welford (HarperCollins) 12-16 Years The Smell of Other People's Houses written by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock (Faber and Faber) The Reluctant Journal of Henry K Larsen written by Susin Nielsen (Andersen Press) Orbiting Jupiter written by Gary. D. Schmidt (Andersen Press) Railhead written by Philip Reeve (Oxford University Press) The Marvels written and illustrated by Brian Selznick (Scholastic) Fire Colour One written by Jenny Valentine (HarperCollins)