Help children love reading
Welcome to The Juniper Book Awards designed to improve literacy, facilitate debate and encourage reading for pleasure for primary pupils aged 10+ and secondary students in Years 7-9.
What to expect
Pupils are invited to read the six shortlisted books and judge which one they consider to be the best. Use this site to find out more about the books, talk and share your thoughts and opinions with other readers across the country, and write reviews. The Juniper Book Awards are open to all primary schools (Years 5 and 6) and secondary schools (Years 7 to 9).
All participating schools will gain access to our Juniper Book Award forum where pupils can write comments and reviews about the books, and interact with pupils from other participating schools as well as the authors*.
If you would like your school to take part in the next Juniper Book Awards please complete this form or scroll down to the bottom of this page to register your interest.
We’re pleased to announce this year's shortlisted book titles!
Nominated categories
Book of the year
We will compile a shortlist of six titles from newly published fiction for young people. The Winner will be selected via a voting system where the participating pupils select their favourite book.
Most innovative school
Schools can submit a statement describing innovative ways that your school has implemented the Juniper Book Awards. The winner is to be decided by Juniper Education.
Best creative award
Awarded to an individual/group of pupils for the best creative idea linked to one of the shortlisted books. Entries can include for example music, dance, live-action drama video, poetry or art. The winner is to be decided by Juniper Education Resources Service.
Best book trailer
Schools create a video trailer for the book of their choice. Juniper Education Resources work closely with IntoFilm who decide on the winning entries.
Best pupil reviews
All pupil book reviews on the forum will be reviewed by our team of librarians to find this year’s best review.
Why sign up?
Sign up for just £107 per school and receive:
- A copy of each of the 6 shortlisted titles
- Publicity material to create a buzz around the awards
- Hints and tips for running the awards in school
- Access to the Juniper forum for posting reviews and voting
- Activities and drama scripts
- An invitation to the virtual ceremony in March. Invitation to all participating schools and shortlisted authors to attend*
- Book trailer workshop in January
“My strong belief is that reading is fantastic. But sometimes, giving students that extra bit of creativity, whether it’s music, a live-action book trailer, animation or art, gets them so engaged in it. And they love doing it.”
Alexis Lock, Learning Resources Manager, Harris Academy Chafford Hundred
Frequently asked questions
We recommend schools to sign up before Christmas to give pupils enough time to read the shortlisted books and decide which one is their favourite before the awards ceremony in March. Your schools, however, might want to give pupils more or less time to read all the books.
We cannot guarantee that the authors will participate. However, in previous years we have had the authors interact with pupils in the forum, reading their reviews and attending the awards ceremony to discuss their books. Generally, the authors are very happy to get involved and love to get honest feedback from pupils.
Yes, if you would like extra copies of the books, we can supply these for an additional cost. Buying the books with us will give you discounted rates.
Find out more
For information about the next Juniper Book Awards please complete this form. We’ll be in touch before the shortlisted books are announced in October.
"*" indicates required fields
*We cannot guarantee the participation of the book authors, but we do invite them to join in with the forum discussions and attend the award ceremony, and in previous years a number of them have done so.