The final chapter of York Libraries’ first Children’s Book Awards came to a close last weekend, when the overall winners were announced at a grand ceremony at York Explore Library Learning Centre.

Two leading authors joined staff and residents at the inaugural Book Awards event on Sunday 28 October.

After over 1,000 votes, the favourite picture book was You Choose by Pippa Goodhart and illustrated by Nick Sharratt (http://www.pippagoodhart.co.uk/books.htm), and the favourite story book declared as the ever-popular Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

The awards were launched in March when children under the age of 14 were invited to nominate their favourite story and picture books of all time. Following the nominations, a short list of five in each category was announced, and children had until 16 September to vote for their favourite.

The short-list was:

Picture books.
Eric Carle – The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Julia Donaldson – The Gruffalo
Debi Gliori – No Matter What
Pippa Goodhart – You Choose
Jill Murphy – Peace at Last.

Story books.
Adam Blade – Beast Quest Grashkor
Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Jeff Kinney – Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Andy Stanton – You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum
Jacqueline Wilson – Little darlings.

The award ceremony not only announced the winners of the awards, but was also an afternoon full of events and activities. Nominated author Debi Gliori was around to sign books and talk about writing stories, whilst Pippa Goodhart was on hand signing copies of her book and talking to children. Other activities included storytelling, illustrating and a short performance by York Theatre Royal’s Youth Theatre of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.

Over June, July and August York libraries’ children’s fiction sections saw an increase of over 6,000 borrowings on the same period last year. The Children’s Book Awards are just one of this summer’s schemes to encourage children to increase their reading, with others including the Big City Read and the Summer Reading Challenge.