The Amazing Book Awards

Shoreham Academy, Kingston Lane, Shoreham-by-Sea, BN43 6YT

Email us at:

info@amazingbookawards.co.uk

Important Dates for Your Diary

Friday 19th June 2026 - The ABA Awards Night

Author title

Author Archive by The ABA Team

The 2017 Long List

By The ABA Team

We are very excited to announce, after a highly successful meeting, the 2017 ABA Long List. And what a list it is! Wow!!

  1. A Song for Ella Grey by David Almond
  2. Twenty Questions for Gloria by Martyn Bedford
  3. Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne
  4. Petunia Perry and the Curse of the Ugly Pigeon by Pamela Butchart
  5. The Secret Fire by C.J. Daugherty & Carina Rozenfeld
  6. River of Ink by Helen Dennis
  7. The Many Worlds of Albie Bright by Christopher Edge
  8. More of Me by Kathryn Evans
  9. The Door that led to Where by Sally Gardner
  10. In Another Life by Laura Jarratt
  11. Maladapted by Richard Kurti
  12. There will be Lies by Nick Lake
  13. The Sign of One by Eugene Lambert
  14.  Gorilla Dawn by Gill Lewis
  15.  The Novice by Taran Matharu
  16. The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
  17. Book of Lies by Teri Terry
  18. Thirteen Chairs by Dan Shelton
  19. Fire Colour One by Jenny Valentine
  20. All Sorts of Possible by Rupert Wallis

 

HOW TO VOTE:

Each school should spend some time discussing the Long List. If you have copies look at the book covers and read the blurbs. Then ask your students to pick the 5 books they would like to see on the shortlist. Finally all you need to do is send us your total votes for each book (not just your top five books).

Get your votes to Amanda (APhelan@worthinghigh.net) by Friday 27th Jan. We’ll be announcing the Shortlist on Wednesday 1st Feb.

 

 

 

 

The 2016 Awards Night

By The ABA Team

Woweee! What an amazing night! The 5th Amazing Book Awards, was without doubt the best one yet! Over 500 people made their way to Shoreham Academy to meet our 2016 finalist authors, Carla, Eve, Teri and Tim. They were joined by our host, the wonderfully fantastic Juno Dawson. (Sadly Alan Gibbons couldn’t join us in person, but he sent us a brilliant video.)

2016-shortlistJuno had the audience on the edge of their seats with her beautiful and impassioned speech about ‘what is politics’ and why all young people should be involved and take an interest in our political landscape. (It was BREXIT day and we were all feeling a little blue. But Juno soon cheered us up!)

Following Chris Riddell’s brilliant example last year, Juno gave all our finalist authors her artistic impression of their main characters. Juno’s drawings were hilarious and much loved by the authors.

After telling us about their characters, their books and their writing inspirations, the finalist authors answered some very tricky questions from members of the audience.

DRUM ROLL PLEASE …. and the winners were…..

carla-s  teri-teve-a

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were absolutely delighted that Carla won Gold this year and she has already agreed to come back to host for us next year. Yay! A massively huge thank you to all who took part! Thank your for voting, for reading and for joining us on the celebration night. We really couldn’t do anything without you!! Thanks also to our finalist authors who travelled from all over the country to be with us. And of course, our final thanks go to the wonderful, the amazing, the awe-inspiring Juno Dawson, who was simply brilliant. We could not have asked for a better host! Thank you Juno!!

A DATE FOR YOUR DIARY …

Make sure you save the date and keep Friday the 23rd June free, it’s the ABAs 2017. Hope to see you all there!

Much love,

ABA

The 2016 Long List is Here!

By The ABA Team

2016 Long List

We are very thrilled to announce the Long List for the 2016 Amazing Book Awards.  Thank you to those of you that attended the meeting yesterday or sent in your opinions.  After much deliberation we narrowed the Long List down to 17, not 15 as initially planned as they all sounded really good!  Here’s the complete list…

 

The 2016 Long List

  1. 7 Days Eve Ainsworth
  2. Night Runner Tim Bowler
  3. I Predict a Riot Catherine Bruton
  4. Lottery Boy Michael Byrne
  5. Bomber Paul Dowswell
  6. End Game Alan Gibbons
  7. Black Horizon M.G. Harris
  8. Seed Loves You See Will Never Let You Go Lisa Heathfield
  9. Jekyll’s Mirror William Hussey
  10. It’s the End of the World as we Know It Saci Lloyd
  11. Crow Moon Anna McKerrow
  12. The Beneath S.C. Ransom
  13. Take Back the Skies Lucy Saxon
  14. The 100 Society Carla Spradbery
  15. Mind Games Teri Terry
  16. One of Us Jeannie Waudby
  17. Black Dove White Raven Elizabeth Wein

ABA HOW TO VOTEPlease may sure we have your votes (the total score for each book) by Monday 1st Feb. Better get voting!!

ABA

 

 

 

Welcome to the Home of the ABAs

By The ABA Team

ABA

We’ve had an epic couple of years here at the ABAs. And we are really, really excited about this year (2016) because we are going to celebrate our 5th Birthday! Happy Birthday Us! Woo!! We had an amazing year last year, 34 schools took part in the ABAs and over 350 people came to the Awards Night. Now we are getting ready for this year and we want more schools than ever to join us! So what are you waiting for?

Watch this space ——->  The 2016 schools application form is coming soon!

When you have completed your form send it back to us along with your £50 before Monday 9th November, then we’ll send you your Welcome Pack and Goodie Bag.

Bonny H Shoreham

Still not sure? Follow this link to our YouTube channel and have a look at the 2014 and 2015 Presentation Nights.Rosie Cut

Or email us: info@amazingbookawards.co.uk for more information.

2014 was an amazing year, 2015 was epic! Now we really hope you decide to join us for a flipping marvellous 2016!

 

Hope to hear from you soon!

ABA

Oh what an ABA night!

By The ABA Team

RosieWell, well, well. What a night! We promised you epic and we did not disappoint! Friday 10th July saw the culmination of our year long endeavours and the ABA Presentation Night 2015. We were so lucky this year as we were joined by all 5 of our final shortlisted authors. Annabel, Emma, James, Jon and Sally. Wozers! They were so lovely and very funny! Well folks, not only did we have 5 of the best authors in the country right now, but we were also joined by a phenomenal host, the amazing, the awesome, the bonkers Chris Riddell!

And Chris isn’t just any old host, he’s an author, an illustrator and he’s the new Children’s Laureate. Ooh yeah!

Chris live drew the authors all night as they talked about their books and answered questions from the huge audience. We were expecting about 200 people and in the end we had nearly 400. Woo! If you were there we hope you had as much fun as we did, and if you missed out this year fear not! We’ll be sending out the DVD in September. Photo gallery to follow ASAP.

So without further a-do… drum roll please …. *clears throat impressively* …. and the winners are:

winners 2015

JamesMassive congrats to James for being the first author to win the ABAs two years in a row, and he has already confirmed that he will be our awesome host next year! Congratulations to Sally and Annabel too. Huge thanks to all our authors for joining us, we really couldn’t do it without your support. And final thanks go to our schools and supporters – thank you so much for all you do for us in your schools and with your students. We wouldn’t be the ABAs without you!

Don’t forget to like our Facebook page – that’s where you can see more of Chris’ awesome drawings from the night. And follow us on twitter too to be kept up-to-date on all our ABA news. @SussexABA

Hope you have a fantastic summer!

lots of love,

ABA

 

 

Our 2015 Host – Chris Riddell

By The ABA Team

chris_riddell_main[1]We are very pleased to announce that our 2015 Host will be the one, and only, Mr Chris Riddell! Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Chris is an accomplished artist and political cartoonist for the Observer. He is well known for his collaborations with the author Paul Stewart on books such as Muddle Earth and the Edge Chronicles, and has also illustrated lots of picture books for younger children. Recently he has been writing and illustrating Macmillan’s award winning and captivating OTTOLINE young fiction series and the amazing GOTH GIRL. He has won many awards for his work, including the Nestlé Gold Award and the rare honour of two Kate Greenaway Medals.

CR BOOKS

As well as being our fantastic host, Chris will be joining our fabulous finalist authors after the event and will be signing copies of his brilliant books. Which will be on sale on the Book Nook stand.

chris 2

You can follow Chris on twitter: @chrisriddell50 if you’d like to know what he’s up to right now. Or have a look at his website: http://www.chrisriddell.co.uk/

We hope you are enjoying reading your shortlist as much as we are! Don’t forget there’s still lots of time to enter our many competitions and don’t forget to have a good gander at all the ABA Goodies we’ll be selling on Friday 10th July. Tweet us your thoughts: @SussexABA

 

 

ABA

The 2015 Shortlist

By The ABA Team

Drum roll please ……..

With much ceremony and fanfare we are (very) delighted to announce our 2015 Shortlist.

Shortlist

And what a list!!! Well done to all of you who voted. We are absolutely delighted, and we hope you are too. But you may have noticed that James Dawson is now on the shortlist, which means, sadly, he won’t be hosting for us this year. (Boo!) But he will be joining us as a panellist! (Yay!) We have a fantastic new host in the pipeline and as soon as it’s confirmed we’ll let you know who it is.

We’ve got lots of good stuff  coming to the website soon. Keep watching this space. And don’t forget to keep telling us what you think about the Shortlist. Tweet us @SussexABA or like our FaceBook page. 

Important bits:

The 2015 ABA Long-List

By The ABA Team

Wow! What a list!! In fact it’s so good we couldn’t choose just 15 books so we picked 17 instead! Now you have until Friday Feb 6th to send us your votes. Remember we need your TOTAL votes for ALL THE BOOKS, not just your top 5 books. We then put all the votes together and we’ll have our Shortlist. It’s so exciting! Don’t forget to tell us what you think about the list! Tweet us @SussexABA or Like our FaceBook page.

Drum-roll please …..

  1. Soldier Dog by Sam Angus
  2. The Private Blog of Joe Cowley by Ben Davis
  3. Cruel Summer by James Dawson
  4. Hate by Alan Gibbons
  5. Half Bad by Sally Green
  6. Now You See Me by Emma Haughton
  7. The Messengers by Edward Hogan
  8. Sawbones by Catherine Johnson
  9. Dead Jealous by Sharon Jones
  10. Split Second by Sophie McKenzie
  11. Riot by Sarah Mussi
  12. The Blood List by Sarah Naughton
  13. Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher
  14. No Where by Jon Robinson
  15. The Mysterium: The Black Dragon by Julian Sedgewick
  16. The Wall by William Sutcliffe
  17. Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

So now it’s over to you! Here are the voting forms:  2015 ABA Voting Forms

Have fun! And don’t forget to send your TOTAL VOTES to Amanda by Friday Feb 6th. APhelan@worthinghigh.net

ABA

 

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Welcome to the ABAs

By The ABA Team

Final Flyer Design

The ABAs 2015 – Dates for your diaries:

  • Book Recommendations received from Publishers/Schools by: 30th September 2014
  • Subscription Deadline: Monday 3rd November 2014
  • Long List A Announced: Wednesday 5th November 2014
  • Long List feedback from schools deadline: Monday 12th January 2015
  • ABA Long List Meeting: Wednesday 14th January 2015 (meeting to narrow down long list, all members welcome) @4.00pm Shoreham Academy)
  • Long List B Announced: Monday 19th January 2015 (long list sent to schools for students/ librarians to vote for the books they would like to read)
  • Shortlist Voting Deadline: Friday 6th Feb 2015
  • Shortlist Announced: Monday 9th Feb 2015 (schools start reading)
  • Order from the Book Nook from: Monday 9th Feb 2015
  • Final Votes Deadline: Tuesday 23rd June 2015
  • Awards Night: Friday 10th July 2015 (hosted by 2014 ABA Gold Award Winner – JAMES DAWSON) @6.15pm Shoreham Academy

SAMPLE WINNERS