Diverse Book Awards 2021

Created by award-winning author Abiola Bello and award-winning publicist Helen Lewis, co-founders of The Author School. “We want to highlight the best of the diverse voices published in the UK & Ireland during 2021, both traditionally and self-published. We believe there’s a need to showcase the talent of marginalised voices, so we came up with The Diverse Book Awards to open a space where the spotlight is on them.”

There are three categories, Children’s, Young Adult and Adult

Best Children’s Book Winner 2021: The Windrush Child. Benjamin Zephaniah (Scholastic)ISBN: 978-0702302725

A powerful and moving account of what it was like to be a Windrush child. The author pulls no punches in his depiction of the racism they faced. Leonard is shocked when he arrives with his mother in the port of Southampton. His father is a stranger to him, it’s cold and even the Jamaican food doesn’t taste the same as it did back home in Maroon Town. But his parents have brought him here to try to make a better life, so Leonard does his best not to complain, to make new friends, to do well at school – even when people hurt him with their words and with their fists.

Best Young Adult Book  Run, Rebel by Manjeet Mann(Penguin) ISBN: 978-0241411421

Written in verse form, it tells a story of Amber, a young girl of illiterate Punjabi parents, who is caught in a world of repression and domestic abuse; but who nevertheless aspires to succeed as an athlete. A nuanced and beautifully crafted, hard hitting and authentic novel.

More Awards

YA Book Prize 2023

The YA Book Prize launched in 2014 to award a YA title written by an author living in the UK or Ireland. Organised by book

The Branford Boase Award 2023

The Branford Boase Award was set up in memory of outstanding author Henrietta Branford and her editor Wendy Boase of Walker Books, who both died

The Yoto Carnegies 2023

The Yoto Carnegies are the UK’s longest running and best-loved children’s book awards, recognising outstanding reading experiences created through writing and illustration in books for

Clippa 2023

CLiPPA (Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award) is the only award for published poetry for children in the UK. A Schools Shadowing Scheme  is

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