The Booker Prize Foundation has announced the Children’s Booker Prize, which will be awarded annually from 2027. The Prize, supported by AKO Foundation, will celebrate the best contemporary fiction for children aged eight to 12 years old. It is the first major new prize from the Foundation in two decades, since the launch of the International Booker Prize in 2005.

The inaugural £50,000 award for children’s fiction will open for submissions in spring 2026, with the shortlist of eight books announced in November 2026. The winner, to be announced in February 2027, will be selected by a combined panel of child and adult judges, chaired by the UK’s Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce. As many as 30,000 copies of the shortlisted and winning books will be gifted to young readers.

The prize will be open to books written in English as well as those translated into English.

As with the Booker Prize and International Booker Prize, the shortlisted authors will each receive £2,500. If a book that has been translated into English wins, the author and translator will share the £50,000 equally, as with the International Booker Prize. If a graphic novel wins, the author and illustrator will share the £50,000 prize equally; if a highly illustrated book wins, the author and illustrator will share the £50,000 in a manner to be agreed with the publisher.

The Prize will celebrate the best contemporary fiction for children written in or translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland. The aim of the Prize is to engage and grow a new generation of readers by recognising and championing the best children’s fiction from writers around the world. The inaugural prize will open for submissions from publishers in spring 2026. The eligibility period for the 2027 prize is November 1, 2025, to October 31, 2026.

The children’s book author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who is the current Waterstones Children’s Laureate, will become the inaugural Chair of judges for the prize. The Prize will be judged by a mixed panel of adult and child judges. Cottrell-Boyce and two other adult judges will select a shortlist of eight books. Three child judges will be recruited – with the support of schools and a range of partners across the culture and entertainment industries – to join the adults in choosing the winning book.

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