Wainwright Prize Shortlists 2026 – books needed more than ever
The Wainwright Prize, the UK’s top nature and conservation writing awards, have announced their 2026 shortlists.
The awards showcase writing that reflects the values of its namesake, Alfred Wainwright: the celebration of nature and our environment, nurturing respect for our planet, and informing readers of the threats that the earth currently faces. The shortlists include books for adults and young readers.
The children’s books shortlists are:
The 2026 Children’s Wainwright Prize for Fiction shortlist:
The Waters and the Wild, Eilish Fisher, illustrated by David Rooney (Penguin Random House Children’s UK Puffin)
The Green Kingdom, Cornelia Funke and Tammi Hartung, illustrated by Melissa Castrillón (DK flip)
The Lone Husky, Hannah Gold, illustrated by Levi Pinfold (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
Swanfall, Sophie Kirtley (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
The Adventures of Portly the Otter: Untold Tales From the Wind in the Willows, M.G. Leonard, illustrated by Polly Dunbar (Farshore, HarperCollins)
The Danger of Small Things, Caryl Lewis (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books)
Birdlands, Anthony McGowan, illustrated by Keith Robinson (Rock the Boat, Oneworld Publications)
Tree Thing, Piers Torday, illustrated by Matthew Taylor Wilson (Quercus Children’s Books)
The 2026 Children’s Wainwright Prize for Non-Fiction shortlist:
An Anthology of Remarkable Bugs, Jess French (DK Children’s)
Letters From Wonderland, Josie George, illustrated by Becky Thorns (Faber & Faber)
Otherlands: An Illustrated Journey Through Earth’s Lost Worlds, Thomas Halliday, illustrated by Gavin Scott (Penguin Random House Children’s UK Puffin)
Shapes of Nature, Ben Hoare (DK Children’s)
Choose Your Own Evolution, Jules Howard, illustrated by Gordy Wright (Nosy Crow)
A Wild Child’s Guide to Nature at Night, Dara McAnulty, illustrated by Barry Falls (Macmillan Children’s Books)
The Cave Explorer, Kate Winter (Penguin Random House Children’s UK Puffin)
The 2026 Children’s Wainwright Prize for Picture Books shortlist:
A River Running Through You, Amy-Jane Beer, illustrated by Elin Manon (Magic Cat Publishing)
The Great Bear, Annie Booker (Two Hoots)
Whale Song, Nicola Davies & Britta Teckentrup (Walker Books)
The Sun Thief, Alice Hemming & Nicola Slater (Scholastic)
Firefly, Robert Macfarlane & Luke Adam Hawker (Magic Cat Publishing)
The Summer Puppy, Jackie Morris & Cathy Fisher (Otter-Barry Books)
Isla and the Sky, Greg Stobbs (Oxford University Press)
The Whale That Sings in the Deep, Yuval Zommer (Oxford University Press)
The 2026 shortlists were selected by an academy made up of independent booksellers, specialist nature reviewers, and authors from across the UK. To select this year’s winners, new panels will take over to judge each of the six categories, bringing together a breadth of expertise across environmental journalism and media, conservation, science, literature, education, and the creative industries.
Of this year’s shortlist, Wainwright Prize ambassador and 2026 host, Henry Bird, says: ‘Each of the categories for this year’s Wainwright Prize reflects the remarkable breadth of stories and ideas explored through environmental literature. Over the past few weeks of reading, I’ve traversed bogs and scaled treetops, been transported thousands of years into the past and generations ahead to the future, felt pangs of despair at what this world has lost and glimmers of hope at what it stands to gain. With the natural world in crisis, I’d go so far as to say that we need these books, now more than ever.’
The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on Thursday 17th September 2026 at the Elmley Nature Reserve in Kent, hosted by Wainwright Prize ambassador and The Times journalist and environmental writer Henry Bird. In addition to the six individual category winners, two exceptional titles will be honoured as the overall winners of The Wainwright Prize: one for adult writing and one for children’s writing. These will be chosen from the respective category winners and will be celebrated as the 2026 Wainwright Prize Book of the Year and the 2026 Wainwright Children’s Prize Book of the Year. Both overall winners will receive £2,500, with the remaining category winners each awarded £500.
