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. |  |
