A new Booker Prize is coming next year.
The Booker Prize Foundation announced in a news release that it will launch the Children’s Booker Prize in 2026, with the first winner receiving the award in 2027.
The Booker Prize, given annually to “the best sustained work of fiction written in English and published in the U.K. and Ireland,” was established in 1969. In 2005, the foundation launched the International Booker Prize, initially given biennially to an author in recognition of their entire body of work, and now given to an author and translator for a book written in a language other than English.
The Children’s Booker Prize, the foundation says, will “celebrate the best contemporary fiction for children aged eight to 12 years old, written in or translated into English and published in the U.K. and/or Ireland.”
The award will be judged by a panel of adults and children. The first prize jury will be chaired by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the U.K. children’s laureate and author of books including Millions, The Astounding Broccoli Boy, and Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth.
The prize will come with a cash award of 50,000 British pounds (about $67,000) to be split among the author, illustrator, and translator, if applicable. The award will be sponsored by the AKO Foundation, which gives grants to charities that support education and the arts or combat the climate crisis.
Gaby Wood, the chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, said of the new prize, “It aims to be several things at once: an award that will champion future classics written for children; a social intervention designed to inspire more young people to read; and a seed from which we hope future generations of lifelong readers will grow.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
