The Booktrust Best Book Awards with Amazon Kindle featured over 300 school children, 24 shortlisted works, six winners and one Best Books Bash.
The event, hosted by TV presenter Mel Giedroyc, rewarded the best and most-loved books for children aged 5-14 years-old, as voted by schools who registered.
Booktrust President Michael Morpurgo started proceedings by delivering a speech which was punctuated with the War Horse author stating: ‘what Booktrust has always been here for is to bring books to children and children to books.’ Adding,
“Books are not just useful things for people to use in school for teaching, they are there to be enjoyed and to get yourself lost in. Of course you need to spell and of course you need to punctuate, but if you don’t have a love of reading then why would you go back to it in the first place? Ted Hughes once told me that ‘prizes aren’t the point of a book’. Prizes are the point for an occasion like this – to arouse interest and excitement. But don’t imagine for one moment that the best book is ‘the best book’, they’re all the best books, otherwise they wouldn’t have been shortlisted.”
Watch a message from Michael at www.bestbookawards.org.uk
