The popular YA novel, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, is the Overall Winner of Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2018. The well reviewed novel, which also won the Older Fiction category, was considered to be “remarkable debut seizes the sorrow and hope of the Black Lives Matter movement and creates a story that blazes with injustice and inspiration”. 

The Hate U Give should have a readership far beyond a core audience of young adults. Ours is a children’s prize, but there is no upper age limit to being stunned by beautiful writing of this visceral power.”

James Daunt, Waterstones Managing Director

There are other category winners that join with The Hate U Give. These bookseller chosen winners came from a shortlist of 18 children books:

 

Illustrated Books Winner

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The Secret of Black Rock by Joe Todd-Stanton

Erin loves to lie on the jetty, looking for the weirdest fish in the sea—the weirder, the better! And she knows the best ones must be further out, where her mum won’t let her go . . 

Out there in the deepest sea lies the Black Rock: a huge, dark and spiky mass that is said to destroy any boats that come near it! Can Erin uncover the truth behind this mysterious legend?

 

Younger Fiction Winner

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Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend

A breathtaking, enchanting new series by debut author Jessica Townsend, about a cursed girl who escapes death and finds herself in a magical world–but is then tested beyond her wildest imagination