Returning for its sixth year, the Alligator’s Mouth Award celebrates the best in highly illustrated children’s fiction.  We’re thrilled to see plenty of our favourite illustrated titles among the 10 longlisted books, including Bear and Bird, Adventuremice: Otter Chaos and Tiny, the Secret Adventurer and we are delighted that our founder, Alison Leach, is joining the judging panel this year.

The Alligator’s Mouth Award recognises a key part of children’s fiction. Young illustrated fiction plays a special role in many children’s reading journeys, bridging the gap between picture books and longer chapter books. Finding the right book at this stage can be a magical experience that sparks a lifelong love of reading. The Alligator’s Mouth Award provides a brilliant platform for showcasing the most exciting and imaginative offerings that authors and illustrators bring to the table for this age group.

The shortlist will be announced in May, and the winner will be revealed in July.

Organised by The Bookseller, The British Book Awards (also known as The Nibbies) is an annual celebration of all things books! Offering a snapshot of the book industry’s achivements and output, the Nibbies include three categories exclusively for children’s books: Children’s Fiction, Children’s Non-Fiction and Children’s Illustrated.

These awards are judged by a panel drawn from across the book industry and beyond, and we at BooksForTopics were delighted to see many of our favourites among the impressive shortlists of children’s titles.

The Children’s Fiction category includes one of our Year 6 Recommended Reads, Skandar and the Unicorn Thief, alongside two of our Books of the Month picks Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun and Tyger, the latter of which went on to win the category. Another of our Year 6 Recommended Reads, You Can Do It, features in the Children’s Non-Fiction shortlist, while one of our Christmas favourites for younger readers, What the Ladybird Heard at Christmas, is shortlisted in the Children’s Illustrated category.

You can check out the full shortlist for the 2023 British Book Awards below!

Although the Children’s categories in the Nibbies celebrate books for children of all ages, here we focus on the titles suited to readers of primary school age. The full shortlists, including the titles for older readers, can be found here.