Waterstone's Children's Book Prize winner
Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2018
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The winner of the 2018 Waterstone's Children's Book Prize has been announced with Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give (Walker Books) winning the Older Fiction and Overall Winner awards.
The Younger Fiction winner is the spellbinding Nevermoor, Jessica Townsend's tale of a courageous young girl who must overcome a terrible magical curse. The Illustrated Book winner is The Secret of Black Rock by Joe Todd-Stanton, where a strange, sea-born mystery reveals a moving message of care for our planet. Waterstones said of the winning book: "A truly ground-breaking work of fiction, destined to become a future classic, The Hate U Give is a gripping, fierce and unflinching novel of one girl's struggle for justice. "Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, the story belongs to 16-year-old Starr, a young girl split between two worlds who finds herself the witness to a fatal tragedy. Powerful and unforgettable, her story exposes divisions of class, racial inequality and the misuse of power, opening up a fault line that lies at the very heart of modern America." Waterstones MD James Daunt added, "The Hate U Give should have a readership far beyond a core audience of young adults. Ours is a children's prize, but there is no upper age limit to being stunned by beautiful writing of this visceral power."
