About the Award
- over 40,000 children were involved and an amazing 17,000 votes were cast;
- children and young people from every local authority in Scotland, from Aberdeen to Dumfries; Shetland to Arran, took part;
- nearly 1,000 accessible copies of the shorlisted books were provided to young judges by RNIB and CALL.
The Scottish Children's Book Awards were originally set up by the Scottish Arts Council in 1999 and are now run by the Scottish Book Trust.
The Awards were previously known as the Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children's Books and sponsorship from the Royal Mail Group came to an end last year and to reflect this, the name of the awards has been changed. The awards structure is exactly the same; if you have already registered to vote for this year, you don’t have to do anything. If you would like to take part, just register as per usual.
Children can vote (See the How to Vote page to find out how) for their favourite book, from a shortlist in each of three categories, either as individual readers or as part of a reading group in a school, library or bookshop. The shortlisted books are:
Early Years (0 - 7 years)
- Dear Vampa by Ross Collins
- The Loon on the Moon by Chae Strathie and Emily Golden
- Apple Pie ABC by Alison Murray
Younger Readers (8 - 11 years)
- Zac and the Dream Pirates by Ross MacKenzie
- There's a Hamster in my Pocket! by Franzeska G Ewart
- Slightly Jones and the Case of the London Dragonfish by Joan Lennon
Older Readers (11 - 16 years)
- Wasted by Nicola Morgan
- The Blackhope Enigma by Teresa Flavin
- The Prisoner of the Inquisition by Theresa Breslin
More information on the Awards including how to register and vote is on the Scottish Book Trust web site.
But what about disabled children who can't read the books?
CALL Scotland has worked with the Scottish Book Trust and the authors and publishers to create accessible digital versions of the nine shortlisted books. The idea is that children and young people with physical, visual and reading or dyslexic difficulties, who can't read or access the paper books, can read the digital books instead and take part in the awards. For example:
- children with spinal injury, cerebral palsy or other physical impairments can click a switch or press a key on a computer, to turn pages and read the books by themselves;
- dyslexic readers or children with visual impairments can change the font size and/or colours on screen, or use text-to-speech software to read the books;
- the books can be read out by the computer using "Heather", the high quality Scottish computer voice that is available free for schools and pupils from CALL Scotland's The Scottish Voice web site.
The books are available free of charge. Readers and schools can request accessible digital copies of the book(s) they wish to read.
Paul Nisbet, Senior Research Fellow at CALL Scotland, said:
"We are delighted that the Scottish Book Trust and the authors and publishers have for a third year supported this initiative to help children with print disabilities take part in the Scottish Book Awards. We are grateful to the publishers for providing digital copies for us to adapt, and we hope that these accessible digital books will raise awareness about our wider Books for All initiative. There are thousands of young people in Scotland who have difficulty reading books because they can't see, can't read, or can't hold a book or turn pages, and the Books for All work, which is part-funded by the Scottish Government, is aiming to ensure that these young people will be able to get hold of books in alternative formats that they can access."
