Class 13 - The English Associate Awards

Last week, Class 13 were invited to read and assess a short-listed set of picture books for a prestigious literary award. Their role was to feed-back to one of the judging panel their own thoughts about the books to help with the judging process. This was a job they took extremely seriously. They formed their own teams based on the book they most preferred, collaborating to create a presentation. They worked fantastically well together and really gave Stephanie Hilder, from Inspire Literacy, lots of useful information to take back the panel. They should all be extremely proud of their effort and hard work, and hopefully had a lot of fun reading all the fantastic books!

Message from Stephanie: 

Dear Year 5,

I would like to say a really big thank you for inviting me to your classroom on Friday 10^th March to hear your thoughts about the long-listed books for the English 4-11 Picture Book Awards 2023. Your category was fiction books for children age 7-11 and we at the English Association were extremely keen to hear your views. After all, the books need to be enjoyed by children your age, if they are to be award winners!

 

I must say it was an absolute treat for me to see how seriously you had all taken this task. It was really clear that you had read all of the books – and more than once – and your opinions were carefully considered and supported by very helpful examples and reasons. I was impressed by the way groups pointed out particular pages to me to show how the colours or the illustrator’s use of light and dark had helped you to understand the feelings of characters, or how a special colour pallet had attracted you and helped you to enjoy the mystical, mythical qualities of certain stories. Some of you will also be pleased to know that your enthusiasm for the ‘sense of peril’ that you had felt playing the Deadly Jungle book meant that I was able to insist that the judging panel look again at this book. Can you believe that it was almost overlooked! Don’t worry – your passion meant the panel looked again, read more of the pages and even played the game!

 

I have been able to take all of your views back to the Award panel who met on Saturday. They loved hearing that Our Tower, was for some ‘without a doubt, the most magical and adventurous book in this collection.’ That’s quite impressive amongst this particular group. They were very interested to hear how the moral of The Midnight Panther touched so many of you as the message was ‘one you can relate to.’ Above all, they enjoyed hearing how carefully you had gathered one another’s thoughts to share and help you to evaluate how much each book had been enjoyed and why.

 

Although I am not allowed to reveal the final decisions just yet (there is a big announcement made in the summer and a ceremony later in the year), I can tell you that your views and your voices were taken very seriously indeed. I hope you will be pleased with the ‘short list’ at least. As there can only be one winner, not everyone’s favourite can take away the top prize but to be shortlisted is a great honour for authors and publishers; it helps more great books find their way into classrooms and libraries everywhere, and into the hands of appreciative readers like you.

 

On behalf of the Award panel, thank you once again for your help. I will make sure your teacher knows when the results are finally announced and I do hope you will continue to enjoy great picture books for many years to come. I know I do.

 

Happy reading,

Stephanie  

 

Award panel judge English 4-11 Picture Book Awards 2023.

(apologies for the lack of photos but I didn't know until afterwards I'm not allowed to share pictures of the books!)