Six female authors have been awarded the 2026 Inclusive Books for Children (IBC) Awards, celebrating UK-published titles designed to represent diverse experiences for young readers aged one to nine. The authors and illustrators will share a £30,000 prize fund and present their perform at the Hay Festival in May, according to an announcement made today.
Chanté Timothy won the children’s fiction category for her graphic novel, Supa Nova, which centers on a young Black girl with a passion for science. The book as well secured one of the inaugural Children’s Choice Awards, voted for by primary school children nationwide. Sophia Payne and Ruchi Mhasane took the picture book award with The Beautiful Layers of Me, a story about a young girl finding the courage to wear a salwar kameez for the first time. The baby and toddler category was awarded to Alex Strick, Annie Kubler and Sarah Dellow for Let’s Play, a touch-and-feel book incorporating words in sign language and braille.
This year marks the second time since the awards’ launch in 2023 that all the winning authors and illustrators have been women. The winning titles were selected by a panel comprised of educators, authors, and illustrators, who praised the books for their “compelling storytelling, strong visual composition and authentic representation.”
Illustrator and author Mei Matsuoka, a member of the judging panel, stated, “These books are pushing boundaries and opening pathways into worlds that need to be represented more. I was delighted to see how inclusivity was incorporated into sweet, funny and engaging stories without overpowering them.”
The inaugural Children’s Choice Awards also recognized Won’t Go! by Sumana Seeboruth and Fotini Tikkou, and Cloud Boy by Greg Stobbs, alongside Supa Nova. The scheme, established as a pilot program to promote reading for pleasure, saw primary school children across the country participating in the voting process, with plans for wider rollout next year.
The awards come during the UK government’s designated National Year of Reading, an initiative aimed at fostering a love of reading among young people. However, the campaign is launched against a backdrop of declining reading enjoyment, with recent National Literacy Trust research indicating that only one in three individuals aged eight to eighteen report enjoying reading “very much” or “quite a lot.”
The IBC Awards also highlight ongoing concerns regarding representation in children’s literature. A 2024 IBC report revealed a “catastrophic decline” in the number of children’s books featuring Black main characters, with a more than 20 percent decrease between 2023 and 2024. The report found that only 1.9 percent of surveyed books – 51 out of 2,721 – featured a Black main character.
