BfK News: January 2003

NEWS

World Book Day: Thursday 6 March

Now in its sixth year, World Book Day is an annual celebration of books and reading with activities taking place all round the country. Once again, every child in full-time education will receive a £1 World Book Day Token which they can redeem for the following specially produced titles:

Duck’s Day Out by Jez Alborough (for under fives); Tough it out, Tom! by Jenny Oldfield (for 5-7 year olds); The Last Polar Bears by Harry Horse (for 7-9 year olds); The Secret Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot (for 10+) and An Eye for an Eye by Malorie Blackman (12+).

Further information from: www.worldbookday.com

AWARDS Nasen Children’s Book Award

The Nasen Children’s Book Award, awarded to the book that most successfully provides a positive image to children with special needs, has been won by Anna Paterson’s Running on Empty (Lucky Duck) which charts the decline and recovery of three teenagers with eating disorders. The author was herself anorexic in her teens and twenties. Two books were highly commended – Susan Gates’ Return of the Mad Mangler (Puffin) about a boy with dyspraxia and Julia Jarman’s Ghost Writer (Andersen Press) about a boy with dyslexia. The runners-up were Kathy Hoopman’s Lisa and the Lacemaker: An Asperger Adventure (Jessica Kingsley) and Brian Keaney’s Falling for Joshua (Orchard Books) about a girl with epilepsy.

The Smarties Award

The gold medal winner of the Five Years Old and Under category is Lucy Cousins’ Jazzy in the Jungle (Walker). The silver medal winner is Charlotte Voake’s Pizza Kittens (Walker) and the bronze medal winner is Neal Layton’s Oscar and Arabella (Hodder). The gold medal winner in the 6-8 age group is Lauren Child’s That Pesky Rat (Orchard). The silver medal winner is Richard Platt and Chris Riddell’s Pirate Diary (Walker) and the bronze medal winner is Michael Morpurgo’s The Last Wolf (Doubleday). The gold medal winner in the 9-11 age group is Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines (Scholastic). The silver medal winner is Sally Prue’s Cold Tom (Oxford) and the bronze medal winner is Geraldine McCaughrean’s Stop the Train (Oxford). The prize was judged by 25,000 school children.