Lollies 2017 Shortlist

SCHOLASTIC UK ANNOUNCE LOLLIES 2017 SHORTLIST OF FUNNIEST BOOKS IN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Michael Rosen, children’s novelist, poet and former Children’s Laureate, today announced the shortlist for the 2017 Laugh Out Loud Awards (The Lollies), a set of awards, now in its second year, created by Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books, to celebrate the funniest children’s books.

Having long championed humorous books for children Rosen said of the shortlist:

“This is a collection of 12 whizzy, crazy, hilarious books. They are guaranteed to tickle. Parents and teachers wondering how to keep your children interested in reading, why not start here? And you can always start them off by reading them out loud - funny voices an' all!"

Rosen and his judging panel, consisting of Nicolette Jones, journalist and Sunday Times Children’s Book Editor and Katie Thistleton, presenter and host of the CBBC Children’s Book Club, were tasked with making the selected shortlist from over 130 books submitted by children’s publishers.

The Lollies are awarded in three categories: Best Laugh Out Loud Picture Book, Best Laugh Out Loud Book for 6-8s and Best Laugh Out Loud Book for 9-13s. The shortlisted books in each category are as follows:

Best Laugh Out Loud Picture Book

Oi Dog by Kes Gray and Jim Field (Hodder Children’s Books)

Eat Your People by Lou Kuenzler and David Wojtowycz (Orchard Books)

Prince of Pants by Alan Macdonald and Sarah McIntyre (Scholastic)

Danny McGee Drinks the Sea by Andy Stanton and Neal Layton (Hodder Children’s Books)

Best Laugh Out Loud Book for 6-8 year olds

Thimble Monkey Superstar by Jon Blake and Martin Chatterton (Firefly Press)

Hamish and the Neverpeople by Danny Wallace and Jamie Littler (Simon and Schuster)

Eddy Stone and the Epic Holiday Mash-Up by Simon Cherry (Usborne)

Future Ratboy and the Invasion of the Nom Noms by Jim Smith (Egmont)

 

Best Laugh Out Loud Book for 9-13 year olds.

I Don't Like Poetry by Joshua Seigal (Bloomsbury)

The Best Medicine by Christine Hamil (Little Island Books)

My Gym Teacher is an Alien Overlord by David Solomons and Laura Ellen Anderson (Nosy Crow)

AniMalcolm by David Baddiel and Jim Field (Harper Collins)

The winning book in each category will be decided solely by children’s votes, with schools and parents encouraged to help kids get involved and vote via the Lollies website, www.scholastic.co.uk/lollies, or via the Scholastic channel on the PopJam app.

The winning books will be announced at an awards ceremony in London in January 2018.

The Lollies were created in response to findings from Scholastic’s Kids & Family Reading Report, (www.scholastic.co.uk/readingreport) which found that what two-thirds of children aged 6-17 looked for when choosing books for themselves were ‘books that make me laugh’.