Afternoon to all you lovely Amazing Book Awards people! We hope that you are staying well and safe in all this pandemic horribleness.
We are really pleased to share news of the #ABA2021 award longlists with you- yes, I did say long LISTS! As we had a fallow year last year we have a long list for both 2020 titles as well as 2021 titles. You will find images of the long lists for each of these attached, and we have recorded a loom video introducing all of these that you are free to use at your setting.
Due to covid current restrictions and awareness that our usual award ceremony may well be impacted by social distancing policies, we have taken the decision to run this year’s events entirely online. We will be streaming the awards announcements along with author interviews and students introductions online on Award Night (Friday 18th June) so everyone can participate regardless of what the covid situation may be by then.
We will still produce all the resources/labels/activities that we usually do, and we will look to you to help connect your readers to the ABA books too and get them engaged with the usual competitions and events. We are aware that everyone’s situation is strange right now, with many of us having very limited ways to connect with our readers, so initial long to shortlist voting will be done via our social media sites.
#ABA2020 titles will be voted on in the week beginning 15th February
#ABA2021 titles will be voted on the follow week, beginning 22nd February
Once all the votes have been collated, we will announce the 2 shortlists on World Book Day, Thursday 4th March. We are currently looking into how we can get students who have read all the shortlist books to vote via a more controllable system than social media! We will ask you to help encourage those readers to use the voting system when we get there.
One final bit of good news for all you wonderful people, we feel that – due to how this year’s events are going to mean working and celebrating in a different way – we are offering all those subscribed to this year’s awards free membership to next year’s awards. We wanted to say thank you to you all for sticking with us through the pandemic and continuing all the hard work to keep your readers engaged with their reading, not just the ABA’s but across the board.
Looking forward to catching up soon, do get in touch with any of us for more clarity, or if you need anything ABA related!
