Winners announced for Cheshire Schools’ Book Awards 2024

The winners of this year’s Cheshire Schools’ Book Awards have been announced.

Over 100 students, teachers, librarians and parents gathered together at Winsford Academy to meet this years’ fantastic array of shortlisted authors and hear about what inspired them to write their novels.

The Cheshire Schools’ Book Awards is the highlight of the year for Cheshire West and Chester Council’s Education Library Service and the schools it supports.  In total 27 secondary schools across Cheshire took part in the awards for 2024.

The Council’s Cabinet Member for a Fairer Future, Councillor Lisa Denson said:

“The Cheshire Schools’ Book Awards is an annual event celebrating teenage fiction and the joy and community of school reading groups.

“The awards are entirely pupil-led, with pupils from subscribing secondary schools nominating and voting for their favourite books. Participation in the award can help schools to encourage reading for pleasure, encouraging lively and positive dialogue amongst pupils and staff. Most excitingly, the awards provide pupils with the opportunity to meet and engage with authors during the launch event and awards ceremony.

“It’s truly inspiring to hear them talk about their work and their passion for stories and writing.”

This year the event was very lucky to hear from nine of the nominated authors: Adam Connors, Tia Fisher, Sarah Hagger-Holt, SF Said, Josh Silver and SJ Wills were able to attend the ceremony in person while Lily Bailey, Natasha Farrant and Christine Pillainayagam sent videos to share at the event.

This year’s winners are:

Younger age category         Winner- SF Said ‘Tyger’

                                            Runner Up- Natasha Farrant ‘The Rescue of Ravenwood’

Older age category             Winner-  Josh Silver- HappyHead

                                           Runner Up- Tia Fisher ‘Crossing the Line’

Comments from participating schools included:

‘A huge thank you from Queens Park High School for a great evening last night. Our students had a great time and were chatting about it all the way home. They loved talking to all the authors and hearing about their writing journeys’.

‘I just wanted to thank you and your team for the organisation of yesterday evening and the book awards in general.  The selection of authors was impressive and there was definitely something for everyone.  Our older reader book club have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the books and they really enjoyed last night - lots of chatter about it this morning.  It has been particularly lovely to see the children identifying with the authors’.

For further information about ELS and the Cheshire Schools’ Book Awards, or to get in touch please visit: 

About ELS (elscheshire.org.uk)

Pictured - Winners at the event:

L to R: Tia Fisher, Josh Silver, Susannah Hill (Council's Education Library Service), Adam Connors, SJ Wills.