British bookstore chain Waterstones honored two authors, Greta Thunberg and Charlie Mackesy, with their annual literary awards, the Guardian reports.
The bookseller named 16-year-old Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg as Author of the Year. Her collection of speeches, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, was also on the shortlist for the Book of the Year prize.
Waterstones said Thunberg’s book “lays bare the eloquence and fury that drive a global environmental movement.”
“Amidst a wide-ranging and immensely strong shortlist they stood out to us as the books we most need now: reading to bring people together, inspiring us to act now to save our planet and to affirm the importance of bravery and compassion in a time of uncertainty,” the retailer said.
Charlie Mackesy’s children’s book The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse won the company’s Book of the Year award, beating out a field that included Margaret Atwood’s Booker Prize-winning The Testaments.
Waterstones called the book “a moving study in friendship in a troubled world, and the perfect gift for those people that you hold closest in your heart.”
The Waterstones Book of the Year has been awarded annually since 2012. Previous winners have included Sally Rooney for Normal People, Sarah Perry for The Essex Serpent, and Coralie Bickford-Smith for The Fox and the Star.
Michael Schaub is an Austin, Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
