The 2024 Bookseller’s YA Book Prize

By Alison Crowley, Ekta Rajagopalan and Camryn Vodden

Bringing to a close August’s children’s book events, the 2024 Bookseller’s YA Book Prize took place on Thursday, 22 August, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Lex Croucher won the 10th-anniversary prize for her book Gwen & Art Are Not in Love. Lex Croucher was shortlisted alongside Benjamin Dean for How to Die Famous, Bea Fitzgerald for Girl, Goddess, Queen, Ravena Guron for This Book Kills, Anika Hussain for This is How You Fall in Love, Jenny Ireland for The First Move, Sally Nicholls for Yours From the Tower, Josh Silver for HappyHead, Laura Steven for Every Exquisite Thing and Kate Weston for Murder on a School Night. 

Focusing primarily on friendship, Gwen & Art Are Not in Love centres around Gwen and Art, who have been set to marry since they were born. Both characters find themselves leaning on each other in ways they never imagined when they learn they are individually attracted to the same sex. Both Gwen and Art agree to pretend they are in love to subside their families' mounting pressures on their future. The true love story blossoms from their platonic friendship as they support each other in their journeys to finding themselves. 

Lex Croucher’s online biography states: “Lex Croucher grew up in Surrey, reading a lot of books and making friends with strangers on the internet and now lives in London.  With a background in social media and NGOs, Lex now writes historical-ish rom-coms and fantasy for both adults and teenagers. They are the Nero Award-shortlisted, New York Times, Indie & USA Today bestselling author of Gwen & Art Are Not in Love.”

The YA Book Prize, held across the UK and Ireland, is the first book prize that primarily focuses on fiction for young adults. The Bookseller website states, “The Bookseller’s YA Book Prize began in 2014 with the aim of celebrating works of fiction tailored to young adults. Founded by the magazine The Bookseller, the event hopes to inspire more young people to read books.” The event partners with the Edinburgh International Book Festival, whereby shortlisted authors participate in events in August. The festival takes place from 10–25 August and holds various creative and literary events. A special event is held to announce the winner. 

As the Bookseller website states, “The books are shortlisted by The Bookseller and the winning title is selected by a panel of judges who pick the book they enjoyed the most and would be most likely to recommend to other young people.”

Previous winners of the YA Book Prize include Danielle Jawando’s When Our Worlds Collided. This coming-of-age novel is about three teenagers in Manchester whose paths cross when an incident occurs. Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating, written by Adiba Jaigirdar, took the 2022 award. It is about two polar opposites who devise a fake dating plan to help each other until they develop real feelings for each other. In 2021, Alice Osemen’s Loveless sealed the deal. This story is about a teenager coming to grips with her sexuality. A complete list of previous winners can be found on The Bookseller’s website. 

The books that have won are diverse in nature and deal with topics that young people have to navigate, such as love and friendship. Books such as the ones listed above are imperative in helping young people navigate the world. 

The ten books shortlisted for the YA Book Prize included How to Die Famous (by Benjamin Dean), This is How You Fall in Love (by Anika Hussain), HappyHead (by Josh Silver) and Murder on a School Night (by Kate Weston). 

The esteemed judges who sit on the panel are: 

Rachel Fox (Children and schools programme director, Edinburgh International Book Festival)

Katie Fraser (YA Book Prize chair & The Bookseller’s staff writer The Bookseller)

Anissa de Gomery (CEO and co-founder of FairyLoot)

Gavin Hetherington (Content creator)

Alice Oseman (Author, illustrator and screenwriter)

2023 Winners 

Danielle Jawando’s coming-of-age novel, When Our Worlds Collided (published by Simon & Schuster Children’s), won the YA Book Prize in 2023. The story follows three teenagers living in Manchester – Jackson, Chantelle and Marc – whose lives become intertwined when a boy named Shaq is stabbed. The stabbing brings to the fore social and institutional prejudices. Soon, the three kids become a tight-knit group, relying on each other for support while navigating the world as Black teenagers. Manchester-born author Jawando shared how she “wanted to write something that looks at the issues that Black teenagers face on a daily basis.”

Adiba Jaigirdar’s queer rom-com, Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating (published by Hachette Children’s), was the winner of the YA Book Prize 2022. It focuses on two very different Bengali girls – popular Hani and academic overachiever Ishu – who begin a fake relationship to both help Hani convince her friends that she is bisexual and increase Ishu’s popularity and chances of becoming head girl. Before long, they start to develop real feelings for each other, but not everyone in their lives is rooting for them. Bangladeshi-Irish author Jaigirdar told The Bookseller: "Winning the YA Book Prize has been a huge honour and an incredible career milestone. It's not always easy to have your work recognised and celebrated in the publishing industry, especially as an Irish author of colour, so I'm immensely grateful.”