Has writing for children ever been more important?

I’m a former bookshop owner and author, and am also proud to work as a mentor to other booksellers. As a lifelong reader, I will always believe books are very special and will support anything that encourages reading for pleasure.

So it comes as no surprise that I was delighted to be invited to help judge the Branford Boase Award this year. Established in 2000, the Branford Boase Award is given annually to the author and editor of the year’s outstanding debut novel for children. An excuse to read the very best up-and-coming authors for young people? Yes please!

Knowing there would be a lot of books involved and a deadline, I quickly needed to switch to more reading in the day – a habit I now want to continue as I do too much of my reading at night when I’m tired. The past list of winners and shortlisted authors reads like a “who’s who” of the best writers for young people of the last twenty years. So no pressure then to make all this reading count and pick the right shortlist. And we were faced with having to choose from so much talent!

This year’s twenty-strong Branford Boase Award longlist featured a wide range of stories for different ages and in different genres. It was so difficult to compare them. I loved seeing so many humorous books – particularly for older readers. There were some brilliant new fantasy settings and ideas too.

All these books deserve to be in the spotlight and get into the hands of many more readers. But choosing the shortlist felt such an important decision when in the background the news is all alarm bells sounding around the decline in reading for pleasure.

I’m sure we’ve all heard the stats, such as regular reading provides greater relaxation than engaging with technology for leisure. The benefits of reading range from increased empathy and the ability to understand one’s own and others’ identities, to attainment in education.

Books play a crucial role as safe spaces to see life differently by walking in other people’s shoes. Amid the apparent crisis of masculinity among young boys, and the lack of positive role models, it feels like books and reading have never been more important.

How do we get more young people reading?

It’s not a bad place to start with young people having access to the right books – books that feel written just for them; books that will make them realise reading isn’t simply something they do at school; books that will hook them into becoming lifelong readers. It can be a little too easy for adults to hand a book to a child with the advice “read this” because they think it’s what a child should be reading.

When I ran my bookshop, my favourite thing was when children arrived free to choose books for themselves and then chatting to them about what they were enjoying reading. Or not. Actually, the best thing was when those who believed they didn’t like reading raced back in, keen for another book. When given the freedom to choose, what children want to read can be different from what adults expect. And different to what children were reading twenty, or even ten years ago.

I still live in the community where I ran my bookshop, and my proudest moments are when young people recognise me and come up to tell me my bookshop made them a reader. What a wonderful thing, to be told you made that kind of difference.

The Brandford Boase Award

The Branford Boase Award is unique not only for the way it spotlights debut authors and new voices but because it acknowledges the collaborative role that editors play in the process. We have so much talent in this industry, experts who can provide skilful steering to make sure today’s children will devour the books by new writers.

Despite the pressure, the judging process was a lot of fun. It felt more like a bookgroup meeting where we all shared our thoughts. And I love nothing better than discussing books! You see so much more in a book by discovering what other people saw.

What I loved least was being forced to choose. Ideally the shortlist would have been twice as long. But this job wasn’t supposed to be easy. It was wonderful to be faced with such a difficult choice. To see how many were stories that felt exactly what today’s young people might be happy to discover – if they were let loose in a bookshop to choose.

So we did, finally, come up with a shortlist. I hope the six debut authors we’ve chosen will go on to write many more books, and become familiar names that everyone recognises. And I hope this shortlist of these new voices, new writers and new stories, reaches a few young people who don’t know, or don’t believe, that they are readers – yet.

The winner of the 2025 Branford Boase Award will be announced on Wednesday 9 July.