Book Awards

The Great Reads Award

The ‘GRA’ award was set up by a group of school librarians working in a variety of Irish second level schools who are passionate about introducing students to great books.  The aim of the award is to highlight new authors and diversify the reading of young adults. It’s also an opportunity for students to voice their enthusiasm about good writing for their age group at a time during the school year when examinations are less pressing.

The KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards

The KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards are the leading annual children’s book awards in Ireland. The Awards identify, honour and promote excellence in books for young people by Irish authors and illustrators. The awards are the most prestigious in Ireland and offer one of the few opportunities for national and international recognition of Irish authors and illustrators. Excellence in children’s books is the over-arching criterion and there are a total of six awards made. Groups around the country can participate in the Junior Juries., all infor on their website linked above

The YA Book Prize

The YA Book Prize launched in 2014 to award a YA title written by an author living in the UK or Ireland. It is the first UK and Ireland prize to specifically focus on fiction for young adults and addresses an important need for a prize in the growing YA and teen market. The prize celebrates great books for teenagers and young adults and aims to get more teens reading and buying books.

Carnegie Medal

The CILIP Carnegie Medal is awarded annually to the writer of an outstanding book written in English for children and young people.

Excelsior Award

The Excelsior Award is the only nationwide book award for graphic novels and manga – where kids aged 11-16 decide the winner by rating each book as they read it! Eight graphic novels are selected for the shortlist and it now attracts over two hundred and fifty schools and public libraries from all over the UK and Ireland! The overall goal of this scheme is to encourage reading amongst teenagers. However, its secondary target is to raise the profile of graphic novels and manga amongst school librarians and teachers. This storytelling medium has been a largely underused resource within education for many years. The Excelsior Award attempts to highlight some of the amazing books that are out there – books that fully deserve to be in our school libraries alongside regular fiction!   

Women’s Prize for Fiction 

The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction is the UK’s most prestigious annual book award for fiction written by a woman

Eisner Awards

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are considered the “Oscars” of the comics world. Named for the pioneering comics creator and graphic novelist Will Eisner, the awards are given out in more than two dozen categories during a ceremony each year at Comic-Con International: San Diego.

The Man Booker Prize 

The Man Booker Prize is the leading literary award in the English speaking world, and has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over four decades.

International Dublin Literary Award 

The International DUBLIN Literary Award is presented annually for a novel written in English or translated into English. The Award is sponsored by Dublin City Council, the municipal government of Dublin, and administered by Dublin City Public Libraries. The Award aims to promote excellence in world literature. Nominations are submitted by library systems in major cities throughout the world.

Newbery Medal 

The Newbery Medal was named for eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.

Branford Boase Award 

The Branford Boase Award is awarded annually for an outstanding first novel to a first-time writer of a book for young people. At the same time, it marks the important contribution of the editor in identifying and nurturing new talent.

Costa Book Awards 

The Costa Book Awards honour some of the most outstanding books of the year written by authors based in the UK and Ireland. There are five categories – First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book – with one of the five winners chosen as Book of the Year, announced at an awards ceremony in London every January.

Irish Book Awards

The An Post Irish Book Awards brings together the entire literary community – readers, authors, booksellers, publishers and librarians – to recognise and celebrate the very best of Irish literary talent.

The Bram Stoker Awards

Each year, the Horror Writer’s Association presents the Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement, named in honor of Bram Stoker, author of the seminal horror work, Dracula. The Bram Stoker Awards were instituted immediately after the organization’s incorporation in 1987. Any work of Horror first published in the English language may be considered for an award during the year of its publication. The categories for which a Bram Stoker Award may be presented have varied over the years, reflecting the state of the publishing industry and the horror genre.

The Hugo Awards

The Hugo Awards, presented annually since 1955, are science fiction’s most prestigious award. The Hugo Awards are voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention (“Worldcon”), which is also responsible for administering them.

The Nebula Awards 

The Nebula Awards® are voted on, and presented by, active members of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. Since 1965, the Nebula Awards have been given each year for the best novel, novella, novelette, and short story eligible for that year’s award. The Award for Best Script was added in 2000. An anthology including the winning pieces of short fiction and several runners-up is also published every year.