The Portsmouth Book Award (Longer Novel) is an annual event which has been organised by the School Library Service since 2001.The aim is for a team of pupil judges to decide on the best paperback fiction book for their age group, published in the previous year.

On 8 January the shortlist for this year’s award was revealed, and since then teams of pupils across nine participating schools have been busy reading the four titles selected.  Previous winners have included Benjamin Zephaniah and Michael Morpurgo, and in 2023 it was Liz Kessler who won. The books in contention for the prestigious award this year are:

‘The Den’ by Keith Gray

‘Steady For This ‘by Nathanael Lessore

‘Scare Me’ by Teri Terry

‘The Last Whale’ by Chris Vicks

On 1 May, Springfield’s team of pupil judges gathered in the Library to discuss their thoughts on each of the books based on criteria such as a good beginning, character and plot development, satisfying endings and issues it caused them to reflect on.

The opinions on each book differed greatly, but when the votes were counted, the unanimous winner was ‘Scare Me’. When the votes from all the schools taking part have been collated, the winner will be revealed at the celebration event on Thursday, 20 June.

Mrs Williams, Librarian