The UK bookseller, Waterstones, has just announced the 2026 winners of their Children’s Book Prize. This award, which is chosen by Waterstones’ booksellers, honors emerging writers of exceptional talent and are blooming in the children’s writing industry.
Here are the winners:
Overall Winner and Best Illustrated Book
Sleep Tight, Disgusting Blob by Huw Aaron
‘All creatures grim and evil, under the tired sun, are settling down – and so must you, my horrible little one…’
It’s time to go to bed, and whether you are a phantom, a vampire, a Dark Lord or a yeti, you still must brush your teeth, put on your pyjamas, and settle down with a cosy story.
Warm, loving and slimy, Sleep Tight, Disgusting Blob is a rhyming delight, ending with a kiss and sweet dreams for all. (Credit: Penguin Random House Children’s UK)
Best Book For Younger Readers
Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree by Janeen Hayat
Evie and Maryam are in the same class at school, uneasily thrown together at the start of a new term as they start a project together looking into their family trees.
The two girls don’t think they have much in common – Maryam feels like an outsider, and Evie thinks Maryam is a bit odd. But when the two girls each find the same mysterious folder containing documents in a secret language that belong to their grandmothers, they discover their ties go back two generations, all the way to India, to partition, and to two best friends who inspired each other more than they ever know.
A beautifully told historical family-based exploration of identity, inheritance, difference and friendship. (Credit: Guppy Publishing Ltd)
Best Book for Older Readers
A Language of Dragons by S. F. Williamson
EVERY FIRE STARTS WITH A SINGLE SPARK.
Welcome to Bletchley Park… with dragons.
London, 1923. Dragons soar through the skies and protests erupt on the streets, but Vivien Featherswallow isn’t worried. She’s going to follow the rules, get an internship studying dragon languages, and make sure her little sister never has to risk growing up Third Class. By midnight, Viv has started a civil war.
With her parents arrested and her sister missing, all the safety Viv has worked for is collapsing around her. So when a lifeline is offered in the form of a mysterious ‘job’, she grabs it. Arriving at Bletchley Park, Viv discovers that she has been recruited as a codebreaker helping the war effort – if she succeeds, she and her family can all go home again. If she doesn’t, they’ll all die.
At first Viv believes that her challenge, of discovering the secrets of a hidden dragon language, is doable. But the more she learns, the more she realises that the bubble she’s grown up in isn’t as safe as she thought, and eventually Viv must decide: What war is she really fighting?
An epic, sweeping fantasy with an incredible Dark Academia setting, a clandestine, slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance, and an unputdownable story, filled with twists and turns, betrayals and secret identities, A Language of Dragons is the unmissable debut of 2025, from an extraordinary new voice. (Credit: HarperCollins)
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