The Booker prize foundation has launched a major new literary award, the Children’s Booker prize, offering £50,000 for the best fiction written for readers aged eight to 12.
The new award will launch in 2026, with the first winner announced in early 2027. It will be decided by a mixed panel of adult and child judges, a first for a Booker award. The inaugural chair of judges will be Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the children’s author and current children’s laureate. He will be joined by two other adult judges, who will help select a shortlist of eight books before three child judges are recruited to help decide the winner.
UK Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce, whose books include the hugely popular Millions, published in 2004, will be the inaugural chair of judges for 2027.
The Booker prize foundation will also gift 30,000 copies of shortlisted and winning books to children each year, working with partners including the National Literacy Trust, The Reading Agency, Bookbanks and the Children’s Book Project. The initiative comes amid reports that children’s reading for pleasure is at its lowest level in 20 years.
The prize will celebrate contemporary children’s fiction written in or translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. As with the adult Booker and International Booker prizes, shortlisted authors will each receive £2,500, and the winner will receive £50,000.
The inaugural Children’s Booker prize will open for submissions in spring 2026, with the shortlist and child judges announced in November that year. The winner will be revealed at a dedicated event for young readers in February 2027. The eligibility period for the 2027 prize will cover books published between 1 November 2025 and 31 October 2026.
The announcement has been met with widespread support from leading children’s authors. Former children’s laureates Malorie Blackman, Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Morpurgo, Cressida Cowell, Anne Fine and Joseph Coelho all welcomed the prize.
Blackman called the award “a timely and very welcome addition”, while Wilson said it would “give a huge boost” to children’s books and offer a “level playing ground” for new and established writers alike.
Morpurgo called the new prize “great news for children and books”, and Coelho said he fully welcomed “a robust prize that celebrates children’s literature in a manner equal to that which adult literature receives.”
The prize will run in partnership with the AKO Foundation, a grant-making charity focused on improving education, supporting the arts and tackling the climate emergency.