Book Awards bring students and authors together for grand finale!
Thousands of students from across our academies have voted in the annual Redhill Trust Book Awards... and the winners have been announced!
A special Book Awards event was held at The Carlton Academy for Years 6, 7 and 8, bringing the World Book Day week of celebrations to a thrilling close.
Students across the Trust gathered to hear from author Ben Davis who won the award last year for his wonderful book The Soup Movement.
Ben was brilliant to listen to. He was really entertaining and brought his characters to life – acting out scenes, giving the characters voices and making us all laugh.
Lucy Georgeson, Trust Lead Librarian, who organises the awards, said: "Ben was brilliant to listen to. He talked about his ‘snowball of inspiration’ – a device he uses to help to give him ideas for his stories. He was really entertaining and brought his characters to life – acting out scenes, giving the characters voices and making us all laugh. After his talk he was kind enough to answer the many questions from the enrapt audience."
Then it was over to Ms Georgeson to announce the winners for the Creative Competition. Students across the Trust were also tasked to create absolutely anything at all based on one of the shortlisted books. It was down to the Trust Librarians to choose winners from the stunning selection of entries - from videos to cakes to incredible artwork and everything in between!
Huge congratulations to the following students who received a goody bag including a book voucher for their efforts.
Creative Competition Winners
| First Prize | |
|---|---|
| Annie and Isla | (The Carlton Academy) |
| Judges' comments: "An incredible recreation of the scenes from The Sky Over Rebecca by Matthew Fox." | |
| Highly Commended | |
|---|---|
| Kacey and Blessings | (Park Vale Academy) |
| Ava, Maggie and Ash | (Colonel Frank Seeley Academy) |
| Ella | (Robert Mellors Primary Academy) |
| Annie | (The Carlton Academy) |
Book Awards Winners
Finally, the winners of the Redhill Academy Trust Children’s Book Award 2022-2023 were announced. The shortlist was revealed in September 2022 and small groups of specially selected students across the Trust got the chance to read, review and interact with the authors up until the start of February 2023 when voting closed.
During that time thousands of students in Years 6-11 voted for their favourite first line, favourite blurb and favourite front cover whilst the small groups of dedicated students had the task of voting for their favourite characters and most importantly the favourite overall book.
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| Favourite First Line | Dread Wood by Jennifer Killick |
| Favourite Blurb | Dread Wood by Jennifer Killick |
| Favourite Front Cover | Illustrator David Dean for The Chime Seekers by Ross Montgomery |
| Favourite Characters | Rebecca, Kara and Samuel from The Sky Over Rebecca by Matthew Fox |
| Favourite Overall Book | The Chime Seekers by Ross Montgomery |
The Redhill Academy Trust Book Awards were started in 2019 by Trust Lead Librarian Lucy Georgeson who is based at The Carlton Academy and they are now firmly embedded in the Redhill Academy Trust calendar of reading events. This year marks the fourth year of the Awards and they get bigger and better each year.
The students were thrilled to see video messages from all the winning authors and illustrators complete with their awards
Ms Georgeson said: "The students were thrilled to see video messages from all the winning authors and illustrators complete with their awards."
"Huge thanks must go to all the students across the Trust who took part and voted, to all the Librarians across the Trust for making it happen and to Ben Davis for being an absolute star!"