Blue Peter Book Awards 2012 winners announced

The nation's children have voted Diary of a Wimpy Kid by American author Jeff Kinney as Blue Peter's Best Children's Book of the Last 10 Years, beating J K Rowling's boy wizard to the top spot in a special online vote.

The comic story of hapless Greg and his quest to survive Middle School, published in an illustrated diary format, started life online on FunBrain.com in 2004. The book has gone on to enjoy phenomenal success, both stateside and in the UK, with five additional titles now in the series and two feature films based on the books also released.

Young voters were asked to log on to bbc.co.uk/bluepeter to choose their favourite book from a shortlist of ten iconic titles that included Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and books by former Children's Laureates Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Morpurgo and Quentin Blake as well as comedian David Walliams.

Jeff said:

I'm thrilled and honestly stunned that kids in the UK voted Diary of a Wimpy Kid as the best
children's book of the past ten years. When I saw the terrific books on the Blue Peter shortlist, I
thought mine didn't stand a chance. I'm so grateful to all of the Wimpy Kid fans in the UK who have
supported my books right from the beginning. I've had the pleasure of meeting a lot of them over the
past year and I can't wait to come back to say 'thank you' for this great honour in person!

South London author Gareth P Jones' werewolf mystery The Considine Curse has triumphed to win the accolade of Blue Peter Book of the Year. His spooky novel, which features a shocking twist near the end, was up against a tale of time travel, a guide to the 2012 Olympics and a book packed full of extreme facts. Over 300 school pupils between age eight and 12 from across the UK read the four books and voted for Gareth's as their favourite.

Gareth said:

I am beyond thrilled to have won the Blue Peter Book of the Year for The Considine Curse. Blue Peter is a national institution which I have watched since I was a child and so this is a tremendous honour. Getting a positive response to a book from just one person feels like a pat on the back, so winning a national award like this is like being whacked between the shoulder blades by an entire army... in a good way.

The winners were announced and received their trophies on a special World Book Day edition of Blue Peter, which was broadcast live from the John Rylands library in Manchester.

Blue Peter Editor Tim Levell comments on the winners:

I am delighted with our two winning books. They are very different in terms of subject matter: one about school life, one about a creepy family with a secret. But they're both funny, well-observed and well-written books that do exactly what Blue Peter tries to do: treat children as grown-ups. The awards even contained a bit of a shock, with Diary of a Wimpy Kid beating hot favourite and topseller Harry Potter. The accident-prone American upstart has snatched a bit of the boy wizard's magic.