So we thought now was a great time to tell you a little bit more about our intrepid longlisting judges and what they were looking for when they worked their way through the world’s biggest pile of children’s books! Here’s our special Oscar’s Book Prize Tuesday Q&A:
Bedri Beytula-Sali and Sajida Akber
Can you tell us why you wanted to be involved with longlisting Oscar’s Book Prize?
Oscar had been attending our nursery since he was a baby. We loved being part of his development and watching him grow to a curious little boy who particularly enjoyed reading books. We have built a strong relationship with his parents and his little sister Alice.
What do you want to find this year?
We were looking forward to finding great joy, excitement and humour in the books we read.
What makes a fabulous book?
The one which will remain forever in a reader’s mind and heart.
What did you love reading when you were little?
Stories with a pinch of magic in them. Oscar’s favourite was How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers
Best book recommendation for 2021
I’m Sticking with You by Smriti Halls
You work with pre-school children every day - what do you think they find most exciting about books?
Funny, short, exciting stories and pictures, which make them giggle and want to get up and go!
What benefits do books have to young children? E.g. cuddles and confidence and imagination as well as literacy?
Books are a wonderful opportunity for the children to develop their cognitive skills, enhance their creativity, expand their listening skills and attention, and learn lots of life lessons through captivating stories and art.
Ed Vere
Can you tell us why you wanted to be involved with longlisting Oscar’s Book Prize?
I’m very happy to be a part of the long-listing process. It’s a delight to see the great work that is being created and to help reward work that is outstanding. Writing good books is hard work… that hard work needs recognition.
What do you want to find this year?
I don’t know what I want to find until I see it. There are so many reasons why a book might be brilliant. It might be very funny, moving, or exciting. Maybe it makes us think - or, if we’re lucky, it's all of those things together.
What makes a fabulous book?
Adding to my last answer - a book which contains a truth of some kind. Truth is important in all the things mentioned above. It also manages to touch our hearts.
What did you love reading when you were little?
So many books - I was voracious. Richard Scarry’s entire world, David McKee, Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh, Roald Dahl… along with Quentin Blake’s incredible illustrations, all Jan Pienkowski’s books.
You won in 2019. What impact has being involved with the prize had?
Writing is hard and sometimes lonely work. There are moments when it’s just incredibly difficult to sit at a desk and pull something from your heart and wrestle it into the shape of book that is publishable and might end up saying something of value to someone. As an author, you seldom get to see someone enjoying your work. Winning the prize was a great honour. It’s recognition helps give me the encouragement to keep going when times are hard. So, thank you for that!
As a former winner, what would you most like children to enjoy about your books?
It’s just very important that children read for enjoyment. It's the single most important thing they can do to help them to educate themselves, to understand the world around them and to learn to think for themselves. As far as my books go… I just hope that children enjoy losing themselves in the worlds I create, and meeting the characters who live in them.
Janet Noble
Can you tell us why you wanted to be involved with longlisting Oscar’s Book Prize?
I enjoy being involved in all activities that promote a love of books and reading to children of all backgrounds and abilities.
What do you want to find this year?
I want to find exciting and engrossing books that are representative of our diverse society.
What makes a fabulous book?
One that creates a stimulating and lasting reading and visual experience through the perfect symmetry of text and illustrations.
What did you love reading when you were little?
I was a young child in the 1970s, so I loved the fantastical, nonsensical, escapist, (with a dash of bad behaviour!), classics of the period, such as: Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak The Giant Jam Sandwich by Janet Burroway and John Vernon Lord Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
Best book recommendation for 2021?
I love the A Fairy Tale Revolution series. Four famous fairy tales, The Ugly Duckling, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel and Blueblood are given a contemporary twist by celebrated writers Rebecca Solnit, Malorie Blackman, Kamila Shamsie and Jeanette Winterson. Reimagined for today’s boys and girls, these brightly illustrated tales are both playful and thoughtful with compassion, courage, and freedom at their heart.
You’re an expert at matching books to children! Are you ever surprised by the books young children choose? Are there differences in the books adults might select for children and what they pick themselves?
I am never surprised! Young children will read anything, and adults tend to select the picture books they loved when they were young (myself included.) Whatever the book, the most enjoyable aspect is when children and adults read together.
When books are read aloud in libraries, what do you think works best?
Books that rhyme and/ or use repetitive text and images are excellent for storytelling. Oi Frog by Kes Gray, So Much by Trish Cooke, There’s A Bear on My Chair by Ross Collins are just a few of the books that are guaranteed to entrance the little ones.
Jo Jeffery
Can you tell us why you wanted to be involved with longlisting Oscar’s Book Prize?
I love children’s books! Now that my children are older (13 and 10) I really miss the joy of the beautiful early years books - there are so many - and I was happy to take part just so that I could indulge my inner child.
What do you want to find this year?
A beautifully illustrated, rhythmic book that is easeful to read and captivates the imagination.
What makes a fabulous book?
A simple story with beautiful illustrations; I love the melody of good writing - the end of the day is as important for the parents as it is for the children.
What did you love reading when you were little?
I have it on good authority that I requested Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit quite a lot!
Best book recommendation for 2021?
I am looking forward to adding to our shelves The Desolations of Devil’s Acre by Ransom Riggs for my 13 year old, which is the 6th novel of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children and for my 10 year old The Wild Before by Piers Torday which is the prequel to ‘The Last Wild’ trilogy.
Tell us more about Read for Good and what happens to those books who don't make the judges' cut?
We have been making UK hospitals a better place for children since 2010, by harnessing the simple but incredibly effective power of books and stories. Our cheery mobile bookcases, packed with carefully chosen titles, have been proven to comfort, distract, educate and entertain – not only boosting the wellbeing of poorly children and their families but also encouraging a love of reading for pleasure. Oscars Book Prize books are part of a huge variety of books we send to children in hospital - from newborn to sixteen year olds. Our main service runs in thirty hospitals nationwide from Truro to Aberdeen and including Belfast. We have also been able to include Oscar’s Book Prize books in our new book box scheme, which places brand new books beyond hospitals to a variety of different children's medical settings, including mental health units and hospices.
As you can imagine 2020 and 2021 has proven quite the challenge. Going to hospital, especially for lengthy or repeated treatments, can be very tough for any child and their family even in ‘normal’ times. That experience has been made even tougher by the pandemic with visitors restricted to one parent only and children often been restricted to their bed or ward, with no outside play or use of the playroom. With few Covid-compliant resources available to children in hospitals, and almost all non-essential services being cancelled or curtailed, our books have provided an escape from the four walls of the hospital and the long empty days, helping to reduce feelings of isolation and anxiety. As a Hospital School teacher told us recently:
'I just wanted to let you know how invaluable the Read for Good books have been during this lockdown period. Although we're not working on the wards, we're now operating a School takeaway service from one of our classrooms - the Play Team share the “menus” and deliver the resources to the bedside from us. We've been sending a book to each child we work with, whenever they're in hospital, and have had some lovely feedback from parents and staff. Parents aren't allowed down to theatre with children at the moment, so a member of the Play Team has to accompany each child instead - one of the Play Specialists told us that yesterday she was able to read the ‘Winnie the Witch’ book, which we'd sent to the child, all the way to the theatre and that this had been a perfect distraction'.
Viveka Alvestrand
Can you tell us why you wanted to be involved with longlisting Oscar’s Book Prize?
As Oscar's mummy and co-founder of the prize that bears his name I've been involved with the longlisting since the prize's inception It marks the start of my favourite time of the year where I am always surrounded by brilliant books for children.
What do you want to find this year?
A book I think a child would like to have read to them again and again; one that triggers an emotion, with beautiful illustrations that chime with the words. More privately, I'll also be looking for a book that I think Oscar would have loved and in my head I'll be reading it to him.
What makes a fabulous book?
A whole range of things! It can be humour, great rhymes, an unusual plot twist, something that gets you thinking - preferably all these rolled into one - and with page-turning pictures to draw you in as well. A great book should shut out the world around you and transport you right into the action. Wonderful prose can be let down by mis-matched illustrations, and vice versa, but when they work together, that's where wonder lies.
What did you love reading when you were little?
I grew up in Sweden where Astrid Lindgren (the creator of Pippi Longstocking and countless other wonderful characters) was pretty much spoon-fed to me, first as picture books, then as I grew older in novel format. I was also fascinated by the quirky illustrations of the Moomin picture books, and I adored The Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Can you tell us more about why OBP thought it was important to make the longlist more visible?
There are so many wonderful children's books published in the UK every year. If publicising the longlist means we can make sure they are put on more people's radars who can go on to enjoy them with their children then that's a great thing.
