The shortlisting has begun for the KPMG Children's Books Ireland Awards 2024. The judging panel is working its way through the 158 entries for this year’s awards and the shortlist will be announced at a special event in the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast in February.
“That’s a significant increase on the number of entries we had in previous years,” says KPMG’s Head of Citizenship and Diversity Karina Howley. “The output from Irish based children’s authors and illustrators is increasing and that’s great to see. The more reading choices available to children the better.”
Sponsored by KPMG since 2020, the Children’s Books Ireland Awards promote excellence in books for children and young people by Irish authors and illustrators.
Every child a reader
“Our vision is for every child to be a reader,” says Elaina Ryan, CEO OF Childrens Books Ireland. “We want to give them a pathway to reading books. Our focus is on excellent books, books that children and young people want to read and enjoy reading. If you want a young person to read a book, it’s really important that they enjoy it.
Books are competing with everything. It’s not just phones, TVs, online games, and other screen-based activities. Young people also spend time hanging out with friends, playing sport, going to youth discos, and a range of other activities that they enjoy and have fun doing. Reading has to be appealing. No one will do it voluntarily with so much else competing for their time.”
Karina Howley
Reading as a positive influence
KPMG’s Karina Howley points out the vitally important difference between literacy and reading. One is a basic skill, and the other is an activity that opens up a world of possibilities for children.
“Literacy is a critically important skill but reading opens up so many opportunities for children,” says Howley. “Reading has been shown to have a positive influence on mental health and it can unlock a child’s imagination and creativity. So many areas are opened up including history and geography and a range of other topics.
It enhances vocabulary and helps with the ability to express yourself, and that stands to you throughout your life. It doesn’t matter what socio-economic background you come from. The playing field is levelled if you’re reading and literacy skills are high. That’s why it’s so important to instil a love of reading early on.”
And reading shouldn’t be seen as a task, she adds. “You can buy books for children, but they won’t be read if it seen as a chore. If you can instil a passion for reading early on in a child’s life, it’s amazing. If you never travel the world, you can read a book and transport yourself to other countries and learn about other cultures. Reading is a gateway to creativity, imagination and opportunity. The power of putting a book in a child’s hands can be magical.”
Elaina Ryan
Adults take note – we need your help!
Elaina Ryan notes the recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) project assessment which showed that Ireland’s 15 year-olds are the best in reading literacy in the EU and the OECD. Irish students are the best performing in reading literacy among the 37 countries in the OECD and the 26 EU countries.
She contrasts those excellent results with the findings of Growing Up In Ireland, the national longitudinal study of children and young people, a joint project of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) and the Central Statistics Office (CSO). “Fifty per cent of the second level students surveyed said they weren’t reading at all,” says Ryan.
In other words, the ability to read doesn’t necessarily translate into the activity. “Adults have to be involved,” Ryan notes. “They can provide access to books for their children. Adults do have an influence on children’s reading choices. But if the adults only know Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton those authors may not appeal to their children.”
Reading matters
That’s where Children’s Books Ireland comes in. Not only does it promote excellence in children’s books, but it also supports the provision of books to children. Parents and teachers looking for books for children to read should get a copy of the Children’s Books Ireland Reading Matters guide which lists the best books of 2023, Ryan advises.
The Reading Matters reading guide features 286 different titles, bringing together the best in children’s and young adult publishing across a variety of formats, from fiction and non-fiction to poetry and graphic novels.
“Prices range from €1 to €18 so there is something to suit every pocket,” she adds. “The guide contains hundreds of titles along with short reviews. Our website has many, many more and you can search for books by age, by theme, and by language.”
This is not the only guide produced by the organisation. The Free to be Me guide sponsored by KPMG highlights books that celebrate diversity, representation and inclusion for children and young people aged up to 18. According to Karina Howley “The reading guide promotes equity and visibility of diverse stories in school and public libraries, bookshops, and in the home.”
Leona Maguire and Books for Birdies
Also on the diversity and inclusion theme, KPMG worked with Children’s Books Ireland on The Book of Birdies during 2023. This built on KPMG’s sponsorship of LPGA Tour professional golfer Leona Maguire and of the Women’s Irish Open tournament was staged for the first time in many years in Dromoland Castle, Co Clare in 2022 and returned to that venue in 2023.
“For every birdie Leona scored from June to September and for every birdie scored at the tournament we donated a book,” Howley explains. “That resulted in €20,000 worth of books being donated to local schools in nearby Newmarket-on-Fergus and a number of DEIS schools in and around Dromoland Castle. This is a very important initiative for us. For many children in DEIS schools, the school library may be the only place for them to get books.
“Children’s Books Ireland is an amazing organisation,” she adds. “We have partnered with them since 2017 on a number of programmes and initiatives. They are extremely professional and passionate about what they do and it’s very easy to engage with them.”
The 2024 Awards
Looking forward to the 2024 KPMG Children's Books Ireland Awards, Ryan says the winners will be announced on Wednesday, May 22, 2024, at the International Literary Festival in Dublin.
“The awards offer a great way of reaching out to readers,” she says. “The Junior Juries are a very important element of the awards. They get the shortlisted books, read them and score them in the same way as the adult jury. We listen to what they say, collate the scores, and present awards based on what they have told us. We always have a junior judge from transition year on the main adult judging panel and this year we have two.
In the last cycle of the awards, the book that won the overall book of the year award also won the junior book of the year. That was Girls who slay monsters: Daring tales of Ireland’s forgotten goddesses by Ellen Ryan and illustrated by Shona Shirley Macdonald illustrator. Daring tales of Ireland’s forgotten goddesses. The fact that the same book won both awards is great from our point of view as it shows us that we are succeeding in promoting books that children and young people want to read.”
Get in touch
For more information on our literacy initiatives, or our wider Corporate Citizenship programmes, please contact Karina Howley of our Corporate Citizenship team. We'd be delighted to hear from you.
Karina Howley
Head of Corporate Citizenship
KPMG in Ireland
