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Journalism of Courage
For over half a century, the Booker Prize has been a lodestar of literary life. Now, for the first time, the organisation behind it is setting its sights on a younger audience.
The Booker Prize Foundation on Friday announced the launch of the Children’s Booker Prize, a £50,000 (Rs 58 lakh) award for fiction aimed at readers aged eight to twelve. Supported by the AKO Foundation, the new prize will open for submissions next spring and name its first winner in early 2027.
It is the Booker Foundation’s first new award in two decades, since the creation of the International Booker Prize in 2005. This one arrives at a delicate cultural moment According to the National Literacy Trust, reading for pleasure among British children has dropped to its lowest level in 20 years.
“The Children’s Booker Prize is the most ambitious thing we’ve embarked on in a generation,” said Gaby Wood, the Foundation’s chief executive. “It’s an award, but also a social project — a way to help more young people fall in love with stories.”
In keeping with that spirit, children will be directly involved in choosing the winner. The inaugural chair of judges will be Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the novelist and screenwriter currently serving as the United Kingdom’s Children’s Laureate. Alongside two other adult judges, he will help select a shortlist of eight books. Three child judges, recruited with the help of schools and arts organisations, will then join the panel to determine the winner.
“Stories belong to everyone,” Cottrell-Boyce said. “Inviting children to the judging table is exactly as it should be. I can’t wait to hear what they have to say.”
Each shortlisted author will receive £2,500 (Rs 2.92 lakh), and the winner will take home £50,000. This is the same purse as the adult Booker Prize. In the case of translated or illustrated works, the award will be shared between creators.
The new prize comes amid growing alarm about declining literacy and attention spans. Social media, streaming, and gaming have all been blamed for competing with books. The Foundation hopes to address that by working with partners such as the National Literacy Trust, The Reading Agency, and The Children’s Book Project to distribute at least 30,000 copies of the shortlisted and winning titles each year to children who might otherwise have no access to them.
Philip Lawford, chief executive of the AKO Foundation, said the partnership reflects his organisation’s focus on education and opportunity. “The evidence linking reading for pleasure to better life chances is overwhelming,” he said. “We’re proud to back something that can make that difference early.”
The launch also aligns with the British government’s planned National Year of Reading 2026, a campaign to rebuild reading habits nationwide.
Since its founding in 1969, the Booker has become one of the most recognisable cultural brands in publishing. Its winners, among them Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel, have helped define modern English-language fiction. The International Booker, honouring works in translation, has reshaped global reading habits and driven a surge in sales of translated literature.
The announcement drew swift applause from writers and publishers. “It’s dismaying that only 30 percent of today’s children read for pleasure,” said Jacqueline Wilson, author of Tracy Beaker. “This prize can shine a light on the great books already out there and help them find their audience.”
Cressida Cowell, creator of How to Train Your Dragon, called the award “a vital signal that children’s literature is as demanding, inventive and important as any other form.”
For Malorie Blackman, author of Noughts & Crosses, the inclusion of young judges may prove the most radical touch. “Children are honest and discerning,” she said. “They deserve a voice in the stories that speak to them.”
The prize’s first winner will be announced in early 2027, but celebrations will begin sooner. At the Booker Prize ceremony next month in London, novelist Penelope Lively, the only author to have won both the Booker (Moon Tiger, 1987) and the Carnegie Medal (The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, 1973), will deliver a keynote address welcoming the new venture. “Those who write for children especially need this,” she said, “and it is needed equally for the children who read.”
The Booker Foundation has long influenced what the world reads. Now it hopes to influence who reads, and how soon they start. Whether the Children’s Booker Prize can reverse the long slide in reading for pleasure remains uncertain. But it may well remind the literary world that the future of fiction depends on its youngest readers.
