The Tower Hamlets Book Award 2009
Tuesday 08 Dec 2009

Winner: 'DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: RODRICK RULES' by Jeff Kinney, Puffin.

The Tower Hamlets Book Award has quickly established itself as one of the leading book awards for children in London, and is now becoming recognised as one of the major children's awards in the south of England.

The award is aimed at children aged 9 to 12 and the winning title is chosen by children in the borough. The award is now in its third year, with the selection and judging process running from March through to December.

Over the summer term schools participated in various reading initiatives and activities involving the 25 longlisted titles, and culminating in the children voting in late July in some schools and in early September in others for their top six titles for this year's shortlist.

The shortlist was announced on Monday 14th September:

The Savage
by David Almond and Dave Mckean (illustrator)
Walker, 2008

Life, interrupted
by Damian Kelleher
Piccadilly Press, 2009

Rodrick rules: Diary of a wimpy kid
by Jeff Kinney
Puffin, 2008

Lost Riders
by Elizabeth Laird
Macmillan, 2009

Ways to live forever
by Sally Nicholls
Marion Lloyd, 2008

Malice
by Chris Wooding
Scholastic, 2009

One significant feature of the award is that, because it runs over both the summer and autumn terms, there are opportunities to promote joint reading activities between primary and secondary school libraries that link in with, and better support, the transition of pupils from Year 6 to Year 7.

Schools continue to promote a range of activities around the six shortlisted titles in the run-up to the grand finale which took place at Tower Hamlets' flagship Whitechapel Idea Store on the afternoon of Friday 4th December, attended by authors Sally Nicholls and Damian Kelleher, amongst others.
Groups of children from ten borough primary and secondary schools were also present, with seven schools treating the large audience to some original and exciting presentations on their favourite shortlisted titles. Artwork from an 'alternative book cover' competition run in conjunction with the book award was also on display at the award ceremony.

Finally, at the end of an exciting afternoon of literary debate and persuasion, the winner of the 2009 Tower Hamlets Book Award was announced as 'DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: RODRICK RULES' by Jeff KINNEY. Some twenty borough schools participated in this year's voting.

The 2008 winner of the award was John Boyne's 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas', and in 2007, Andy Stanton won with 'You're a Bad Man, Mr. Gum'