The Booker Prize Foundation is adding to its roster of rarefied literary recognitions. A new prize will recognize excellent fiction written for young readers—specifically, children ages eight to 12.
As The Guardian reported this morning, the baby Booker will launch in 2026, and announce its first selections in early 2027. Like its older sibling, this prize will support work written in or translated into English. All eligible books must be published in the UK or Ireland.
Also as with the adult and International Booker prizes, shortlisted authors will each receive £2,500, and the winner will take home £50,000. The project is funded in part by the AKO Foundation—a grant-giving charity that focuses on education, arts, and climate initiatives.
Who can we thank for this happy intervention? The first judge panel will be chaired by Frank Cottrell Boyce, the current Waterstones English children’s laureate and the best-selling author of children’s novels like Millions and Desirable. (Grown-up fans may recognize Cottrell Boyce for his screenplay collaborations with British comedian Michael Winterbottom, with whom he made 24 Hour Party People.)
Process-wise, two other adult judges will join the laureate to determine a shortlist. Then, the true experts are brought in. In a novel move, the children’s Booker will recruit a panel of three child judges to help decide the winner from the eight semifinalists.
Better still, the new prize is committed to making prize books accessible for all child readers. As part of its mandate, the baby Booker will donate 30,000 copies of all shortlisted and winning titles each year, via partnerships with the National Literacy Trust, The Reading Agency, Bookbanks and the Children’s Book Project.
As The Guardian notes, this public initiative comes at a critical time—if we’re to believe reports that “children’s reading for pleasure is at its lowest level in 20 years.”
Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker prize foundation, described the new prize as “the most ambitious endeavor” the foundation’s tried since the launch of the International Booker in 2005.
As she told The Guardian, 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.”
So better start your engines, children’s writers. And as for young readers? As Wood says, “we can’t wait to hear the views of the ultimate judges of the quality of children’s fiction: children themselves.”
