Children’s Booker Prize launched: £50,000 award to honour the best in children’s fiction from 2027
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The Booker Prize Foundation has announced the launch of the Children’s Booker Prize, a new annual literary award recognising outstanding fiction for children aged eight to twelve.
Supported by the AKO Foundation, the prize will be awarded for the first time in 2027.
The inaugural £50,000 award will open for submissions in spring 2026, with a shortlist of eight books to be announced in November 2026. The winner will be revealed in February 2027.
This is the Booker Prize Foundation’s first major new award in two decades, following the launch of the International Booker Prize in 2005.
The award will celebrate the best contemporary children’s fiction written in or translated into English and published in the UK and Ireland. The Foundation said the goal of the prize is to “engage and grow a new generation of readers by recognising and championing the best children’s fiction from writers around the world.”
As with other Booker awards, each shortlisted author will receive £2,500. If a translated book wins, the author and translator will share the £50,000 prize equally. Similarly, if a graphic novel wins, the author and illustrator will share the prize equally. For highly illustrated books, the author and illustrator will share the award in an arrangement agreed upon with the publisher.
The eligibility period for the first award will run from November 1, 2025, to October 31, 2026. The prize will be open to both original English works and those translated into English.
The judging process will feature both adult and child judges.
The panel will be chaired by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the UK’s Children’s Laureate and a well-known children’s author and screenwriter. Cottrell-Boyce and two adult judges will first select the shortlist of eight titles. They will then be joined by three child judges — recruited with the help of schools and partners from the culture and entertainment industries — to choose the winning book.
In addition to the prize money, up to 30,000 copies of the shortlisted and winning books will be gifted to young readers, further promoting access to quality literature for children.