LONDON, 2014-5-21 — /EPR Retail News/ — Sainsbury’s, the UK’s third largest supermarket and a major player in children’s book retailing, has today announced details of the first “Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Awards”.
Sainsbury’s is inviting all their current children’s book publishers to nominate up to two books for each of the three award categories: Baby and Toddler, Picture Books; and Fiction for age 5-9 years.
The judging panel will be chaired by Louise Ward, Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Buyer and will comprise acclaimed author Phil Earle, award winning illustrator Sarah McIntyre and Sainsbury’s children’s book buying team. The judges will shortlist three books per category. The winning author of each category will receive a prize of £1,000 and all winning titles and shortlisted books will be promoted in Sainsbury’s stores in the key trading period leading up to Christmas 2014.
Sainsbury’s sells children’s books in more than 300 supermarket stores across the UK. In 2011 Sainsbury’s re-launched its range of own-brand children’s books and in 2013 was awarded the title “Children’s Bookseller of the Year” at The Bookseller Industry Awards.
Phil Carroll, Sainsbury’s Books Buying Manager announced the Awards saying; “We are really proud of our success in children’s books which has been made possible because of the great relationships we have with our publishers, authors and illustrators.
“We came up with the idea of doing our own awards as a way of highlighting to our customers the very best children’s books.”
The deadline for submissions is 5pm on 6 June 2014 and the nine shortlisted books will be announced in early October 2014.
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