Established in 2000, in memory of award-winning author Henrietta Branford and her editor Wendy Boase, one of the founders of Walker Books, the Branford Boase Awardis given annually to the author and editor of the outstanding debut novel for children. Uniquely, it also honours the editor of the winning title and highlights the importance of the editor in nurturing new talent.

Last year’s winners were Muhammad Khan and his editor Lucy Pearse for I Am Thunder.  The winner of the 2020 award will be announced in a special online ceremony at 6.00pm on Wednesday 9 September.  We are delighted to welcome Layla Hudson of Round Table Books, one of the judges for the 2020 Award, describes the process and the 2020 shortlist

Being a judge for the 2020 Branford Boase Award has been an absolute honour. Since starting my bookselling career back in 2016, I’ve always wanted to be part of a judging panel and to share my thoughts with other judges about which books we thought were winners. Although, of course, it’s very tricky to choose one winner out of twenty books, I enjoyed the challenge immensely! It was also fun to do such critical reading; as a blogger I do tend to keep things in mind when it comes to needing to review a book, but this was on a whole different level. I found myself keeping notes and highlighting parts that I wanted to discuss, which isn’t something I usually do. 

Of course, this year things were very different with our judging meetings and discussions. Back when I was first chosen to be a judge, I was looking forward to meeting my fellow judges in person and chatting books over cake. With lockdown, meetings had to be changed. We all met and spoke over Zoom, brought our own cakes if we wanted, sat with our stacks of books but were able to still chat passionately about the things we’d read and discuss our top favourites on the list. It was interesting to hear my fellow judges’ thoughts on the longlist, and was also great to get into discussion about our thoughts on particular books. Every reader is different, and my fellow judges Julia Eccleshare, Muhammad Khan, Sue Bastone and Victoria Dilly were an absolute delight to work with. Many passionate talks and agreements were had during our Zoom calls, and although we weren’t together, this didn’t stop us from running over our allotted meeting times with our discussions. 

The 2020 shortlist has been incredibly strong, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading these books. Some of my new favourites came from this shortlist alone! Each book is so different which really shows the variety of books published today, and there are so many themes and topics discussed throughout. A Pocketful of Stars by Aisha Bushby not only talks about grief, but has the topic of change throughout the book as the main character navigates through the ups and downs of starting secondary school, The Million Pieces of Neena Gill by Emma Smith-Barton delicately discusses teenage mental health, and Frostheart by Jamie Littler is a triumphant adventure that has a core message of finding your voice. The shortlist also showcases some different and intriguing takes on traditional book publishing. For example, Bearmouth by Liz Hyder is written phonetically as the character is learning to read and write as you go through the book, which I’ve never seen before! A Good Girls Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson includes interview transcripts and video descriptions, whilst also showing parts of the main characters essay as she writes it, and The Space We’re In by Katya Balen has coded chapter titles that you can decipher with the key at the start of the book. The editing process that the books have gone through is also to be applauded - there are some brilliant editors in the world of children’s publishing, and the books longlisted goes to show these talents.  There is a wealth of new talent in the book world, and I was also proud that there were some books by Black authors and authors of colour on the list too. I hope that publishers continue to work hard to champion their books by diverse authors, and hope to see more featured in future awards.

Many thanks to Layla Hudson for her insightful thoughts and views on judging this year's Branford Boase Award and on the shortlist.