Page last updated at 17:01 GMT, Wednesday, 3 March 2010

Ali Sparkes wins Blue Peter book of the year award

Ali Sparkes
Ali Sparkes is also author of the Shapeshifter and Monster Maker books

A tale of two cryogenically frozen children from the 1950s, brought back to life in 2009, has won the Blue Peter book of the year award.

Frozen in Time was written by Ali Sparkes, who previously worked on BBC Radio 4's Home Truths.

Her previous books include the Monster Makers and Shapeshifter series.

Dinkin Dings and the Frightening Things, by Guy Bass, and Why Eating Bogeys is Good For You, by Mitchell Symons, also won awards.

Frozen in Time won the top accolade on the special episode of Blue Peter broadcast on Wednesday, in honour of World Book Day.

SHORTLISTED BOOKS
Best Book With Facts: Usborne Lift-the-flap Picture Atlas - (Alex Frith and Kate Leake); Tail-End Charlie (Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom); Why Eating Bogeys is Good for You (Mitchell Symons)
Book I Couldn't Put Down: Cosmic (Frank Cottrell Boyce); The Boy Who Fell Down Exit 43 (Harriet Goodwin); Frozen in Time (Ali Sparkes)
Most Fun Story with Pictures: Peter the Penguin Pioneer (Daren King); Spells (Emily Gravett); Dinkin Dings and the Frightening Things (Guy Bass and Pete Williamson)

Ms Sparkes said: "I really think the Blue Peter children's book award is the children's author's Oscar and I know a lot of my author friends agree.

"All they've been able to say since they heard I was shortlisted is 'Will you get a Blue Peter badge? Will you get a badge?!'

"And what makes it extra chunkily lovely is that Frozen In Time is such a British book and shares so much of its British spirit with Blue Peter.

"I think anyone who reads it, of whatever age, will make that connection. I really wanted it to be about adventure, friendship, tolerance, decency, modern life, history, cookery, handling fear - and a lot of laughs."

The Blue Peter Book Awards have been recognising and celebrating the best children's books since 2000.

There are three categories of awards: most fun story with pictures, best book with facts and book I couldn't put down. The favourite of the three is voted Blue Peter book of the year.

Children's vote

Dinkin Dings and the Frightening Things won the most fun story with pictures category, while Why Eating Bogeys is Good For You took the title for best book with facts.

Frozen In Time was named book of the year after winning the book I couldn't put down category.

The nine shortlisted books were voted for by children.

Tim Levell, Blue Peter editor said: "What is so wonderful about the Blue Peter Book Awards is that the winners are decided by children, which I know means so much to authors.

"I am of course delighted for Ali and I hope she enjoys the rest of 2010 knowing that she has written the Blue Peter Book of the Year!"



Print Sponsor


SEE ALSO
Haig wins Blue Peter book award
04 Mar 09 |  Arts & Culture

RELATED BBC LINKS

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites


FEATURES, VIEWS, ANALYSIS
Has China's housing bubble burst?
How the world's oldest clove tree defied an empire
Why Royal Ballet principal Sergei Polunin quit

BBC iD

Sign in

BBC navigation

Copyright © 2016 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.

Americas Africa Europe Middle East South Asia Asia Pacific
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8548002.stm
news.bbc.co.uk
crawl=CC-MAIN-2016-50
101078
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:LWU36AWHD5QX4GGNJG3AZFINPYT7OBJA
<urn:uuid:bf1d6e09-9ccc-4d9f-95af-f54978fa5904>
2016-12-08T03:24:52Z
212.58.246.81
sha1:TWU53PRQSS5CG552HVTNMQLXR2G6NO6N
<urn:uuid:2f5eebc6-7bfd-4b9a-a0e2-ca222fefb73d>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8548002.stm
length
response
<urn:uuid:3d7cea7f-0c48-455f-b5c9-6b4b6c728205>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2016-50
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for November 2016
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf