After 5 months of reading, scoring and judging, we have finally arrived at the day where we announce the 2020 WriteMentor Children’s Novel Award winner!

This year we received 447 entries for the award.

And to our readers, our adult ones listed below and our 100 or so kid readers, thank you for reading the original entries and then again for reading our long list and helping get that list down to just 8 entries for the shortlist.

Alexandra Page, Clare Helen Welsh, A.J. Sass, Carolyn Ward, Anna Orridge, Anne Boyere, Dale Hannah, Ellie Lock, Emma Finlayson-Palmer, Emma Read, Florianne Humphrey, Hannah Kates, Julie Sykes, Jodi Herlick, Julie Marney Leigh, Kathryn Lougheed, Kathryn Clark, Lindsay Galvin, Lydia Massiah, Melissa Welliver, Stephen Catling, Alison Donald, Polly Owen, Fiona Barker, Jenny Moore, Bonnie Swanson.

Our judge, Alice Williams, read our shortlist of 8 and, despite how difficult it was due to the high standard, chose a winner in two categories:

• Picture Books
• Novels

She also choose an overall, winner from the two category winners.

I’ll say now, to those on the shortlist who didn’t win, that it was a monumental achievement to get there! Not many competitions would need to you to be read by 8 readers (kids and adults) and get approval by all. So take heart, and as Alice says below, she believes all of these manuscripts have the potential to attract an agent.

The result is in the video at the very bottom of this post if you wish to skip ahead.

Before that, Alice kindly recorded some feedback on all the entries (listed in alphabetical order) she read.

49 Sisters by Sue Cunningham

Dexter And The Dark Unicorn by Caroline Murphy

Faruq and the Wiri Wiri by Sophia Payne

Grow Me a Rainforest by Bethany Pleydell

My Mummy’s a Witch by Tracy Curran

The Curry Catastrophe by Danielle Dale

The Eternal Return of Clara Hart by Louise Cook

The Giants of Machu Picchu by Alex Monk

 

Thanks so much to Alice for all the comments above – usually competitions have this in written form, but it’s lovely to hear such positive things about your story from the judge themselves. Even if you haven’t won, hopefully that cheers you up a little!

The Winners

And now, it’s time to announce our winners for 2020. Alice announces the PB category winner first, then the novel category winner, and the overall winner.

If you want to see the video announcement, click below. If you’d rather read the results, than hear them, scroll down…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Congratulations! 🎉

Picture Book category winner: Faruq and the Wiri Wiri by Sophia Payne

Novel (CB/MG/YA) category winner: 49 Sisters by Sue Cunningham

Well done to both Sophia and Sue for winning the relevant categories.
And the overall winner, and recipient of £500 and trophy, is:

49 Sisters by Sue Cunningham

 

Congratulations to Sue and 49 sisters! 🎉

 

And finally, the prize for the best entry featuring a BAME main character, written by a BAME author, winning a 1 year mentorship with #WriteMentor Spark, at Level 3 worth £480, is:

Faruq and the Wiri Wiri by Sophia Payne