Six female authors have been crowned winners of the 2026 Inclusive Books for Children (IBC) awards.
The literacy charity’s prizes celebrate the best UK-published inclusive titles for children aged one to nine. This year marks the second time that all the winners have been women since the prizes were launched in 2023.
The authors and illustrators will share a £30,000 prize fund, and will present their work at Hay festival in May.
In the children’s fiction category, the winner was Supa Nova by Chanté Timothy, a graphic novel about a young Black girl with a love for science. The picture book award went to The Beautiful Layers of Me by Sophia Payne and Ruchi Mhasane, which tells the story of a young girl gaining the confidence to wear a salwar kameez for the first time. And the winner in the baby and toddler category was Let’s Play by Alex Strick, Annie Kubler and Sarah Dellow, a touch-and-feel book featuring words in signs and braille.
The winning titles were selected by a panel of educators, authors and illustrators.
double quotation markI was delighted to see how inclusivity was incorporated into sweet, funny and engaging stories
“These books are pushing boundaries and opening pathways into worlds that need to be represented more. I was delighted to see how inclusivity was incorporated into sweet, funny and engaging stories without overpowering them,” said judge, illustrator and author Mei Matsuoka.
Judges praised this year’s winners for “compelling storytelling, strong visual composition and authentic representation”, according to IBC.
The inaugural children’s choice awards, introduced as a pilot scheme to complement the main prize and encourage reading for pleasure, were voted for by primary school pupils across the country. The winners were Won’t Go! by Sumana Seeboruth and Fotini Tikkou, Cloud Boy by Greg Stobbs, and main prize winner Supa Nova.
The winners are announced as the government’s National Year of Reading campaign gets under way, encouraging children to read by following their interests and passions. It comes on the back of research by the National Literacy Trust that found reading enjoyment among children and young people is at its lowest recorded level, with just one in three of those aged eight to 18 saying they enjoy reading “very much” or “quite a lot”.
Last year, a report by IBC found that the number of children’s books featuring a Black main character dropped by more than a fifth between 2023 and 2024. Of the 2,721 books surveyed, only 51 (1.9%) featured a Black main character, down by 21.5% compared with 2023. The charity described the findings as a “catastrophic decline in Black representation”, and said the report revealed “stark inequalities” in UK children’s publishing.
