Nominations Open for the Little Rebels Award for Radical Children’s Fiction

 

 The Alliance of Radical Booksellers (ARB) is delighted to announce that the Little Rebels Children’s Book Award for radical children’s fiction is back for its 3^rdyear. The award is given by the Alliance of Radical Booksellers (ARB) and is administered by specialist children’s booksellers, Letterbox Library.

The Little Rebels Award recognises children’s fiction (for readers aged 0-12) which was first published in 2014 and which promotes social justice or social equality or challenges stereotypes or is informed by anti-discriminatory concerns. The award is administered by the 31-year-old, not-for-profit children’s booksellers, Letterbox Library, who were recently nominated by IBBY UK for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for their work in “championing diversity in children’s literature”.

Fen Coles, Director of Letterbox Library said, “This year we’ve seen James Dawson talk about inclusion for the Patrick Hardy lecture, IBBY UK holding a conference on ‘Belonging’, the Guardian’s lgbt and diversity weeks, Inclusive Minds’ #everybodyin campaign and our Children’s Laureate’s repeated, measured words about the need for more diversity in children’s books. This couldn’t be a more judicious time for the Little Rebels Children’s Book Award; the children’s book world seems to be hungry for a little more equality and a little more ‘justice’ and so we welcome publishers’ nominations for those books which they think will make tiny steps or even leaps towards this”. Full submission guidelines can be found atwww.littlerebelsaward.wordpress.com The closing date for nominations is January 12^th 2015.

When asked for their response to being shortlisted for Little Rebels 2014, Gill Lewis replied,“thrilled”, Deborah Chancellor said, “I don’t feel I’m rebellious enough” and Geraldine McCaughrean answered, “I am a total conformist”. Meantime, Gillian Cross, who won the 2014 award for her dystopian narrative, After Tomorrow, said “I’m honoured and delighted. We don’t write tracts and we don’t write propaganda when we write fiction. But, we can’t help writing about things which engage with who we are and how we live in the world”.

The Little Rebels Children’s Book Award is a sister award to Bread & Roses, which recognises radical adult non-fiction published in the UK. Both awards are the inspiration of the Alliance of Radical Booksellers, a network of radical booksellers in the UK. Both prizes will be presented at the 3^rd London Radical Bookfair on Saturday May 9^th2015, Bishopsgate Institute, London.