The Blue Peter Book Awards 2012 shortlist announced

Blue Peter Book Awards 2012

Fact versus fiction: olympians, extreme facts, werewolves and time-travellers compete for the Blue Peter Book Awards 2012

Booktrust and Blue Peter are delighted to announce the shortlist for the Blue Peter Book Awards 2012. These enormously popular and influential awards have been recognising and celebrating the best children’s authors, the most fascinating fact books and the greatest reads for children since 2000. This year’s shortlist includes: a fact book that contains all there is to know about the 2012 Olympics; a treasure trove of information about the extremes of the planet; a novel that investigates those strange howls in the night; and a tale of friendship, time travel and tragedy. The shortlist will be announced on the show on Tuesday 6 December by children’s author Cressida Cowell whose book How to Train Your Dragon was recently made into an animated movie.

The Blue Peter Book Awards 2012 shortlist is:
Discover the Extreme World by Camilla de la Bedoyere, Clive Gifford, John Farndon, Steve Parker, Stewart Ross and Philip Steele (Miles Kelly)
The Official Countdown to the London 2012 Games by Simon Hart (Carlton Books)
The Considine Curse by Gareth P. Jones (Bloomsbury)
A Year without Autumn by Liz Kessler (Orion Children’s Books)

This year’s judges who selected the shortlist are the bestselling children’s author of the series My Secret Unicorn and Stardust, Linda Chapman, Librarian Rebecca Gediking and Blue Peter Editor Tim Levell. They were looking for the best two fiction and non-fiction titles that would appeal to boys and girls, aged between 6 and 12.

The shortlisted books will now be judged by more than 200 young Blue Peter viewers drawn from 10 schools across the UK to decide the winner of the Blue Peter Book of the Year 2012. This year for the first time, the winner will be announced and awarded a Blue Peter trophy on a special edition of Blue Peter dedicated to children’s books on Thursday 1 March 2012, to coincide with World Book Day.

Find out more about the Blue Peter Book Awards 2012