SHORTLIST FOR THE 2020 BRANFORD BOASE AWARD ANNOUNCED

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The shortlist for the 2020 Branford Boase Award has been announced. Founded in 2000 to commemorate author Henrietta Branford and influential Walker Books editor Wendy Boase, the Branford Boase is awarded to the author of an outstanding debut novel for children. Uniquely, it also honours the editor of the winning title and highlights the importance of the editor in nurturing new talent.

Previous winners and shortlisted authors include Frances Hardinge, Meg Rosoff, Mal Peet, Philip Reeve, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Patrick Ness and Marcus Sedgwick and it’s always worth checking the shortlist for future stars.

Julia Eccleshare, one of the founders of award and chair of the judges says: ‘In highlighting the most exciting new authors and the most talented editors, the Branford Boase Award also identifies the preoccupations and strengths of current children’s literature and we are pleased to say that this year’s shortlist is particularly rich and diverse. Here are extremely powerful, challenging stories tackling complex issues alongside funny, exciting, original fiction; the range of voices represented is unparalleled in the award’s twenty-year history. We are excited not only about the books on the shortlist, but about what their authors will write next too.’

The shortlist for the 2020 award is as follows:

Little Badman and the Invasion of the Killer Aunties by Humza Arshad and Henry White, edited by Holly Harris and Sharan Matharu, illus Aleksei Bitskoff (Puffin)

The Space We’re In by Katya Balen, edited by Lucy Mackay-Sim, illus Laura Carlin (Bloomsbury)

A Pocketful of Stars by Aisha Bushby, edited by Liz Bankes and Sarah Levison (Egmont)

Bearmouth by Liz Hyder, edited by Sarah Odedina (Pushkin Press)

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson, edited by Lindsey Heaven (Electric Monkey)

Frostheart by Jamie Littler, edited by Naomi Colthurst (Puffin)

The Million Pieces of Neena Gill by Emma Smith-Barton, edited by Naomi Colthurst (Penguin)

This year’s judges are Sue Bastone, vice-chair SLA; Victoria Dilly, creator of the Book Activist blog; Layla Hudson of Round Table Books, Brixton; and Muhammad Khan, author of I Am Thunder, winner of the 2019 Branford Boase Award. The panel is chaired by Julia Eccleshare, children’s director of the Hay Festival.

The winner of the Branford Boase Award would normally be announced at a ceremony in London in early July. This year the announcement of the winner has been delayed until 24^th September.

The Branford Boase Award is supported by Walker Books, who reissued Henrietta Branford’s masterpiece Fire Bed and Bone last year.