TWITCH wins the Alexander Palace Biblio-Buzz Children's Book Prize 2023

I’ve had such a wonderfully surreal day at the Alexandra Palace Biblio Buzz Children’s Book Award 2023.

Biblio Buzz is a huge event organised by Haringey Libraries and Haringey Schools Librarians Group. It’s a reading initiative that encourages young people aged 9–12 to immerse themselves in the world of books.

Over 700 children read the shortlisted books and vote for their favourite.

The list was awesome. On it were:

Tyger by S. F. Said

The Bird Singers by Eve Wersocki Morris

Consequence Girl by Alastair Chisholm

The Elemental Detective by Patrice Lawrence

S.T.E.A.L.T.H. Access Denied by Jason Rohan

and of course - Twitch by me

Twitch won! I cannot tell you how happy this has made me. The noise from the audience when it was announced was deafeningly jubilant. I was so shocked.

A huge thank you to all who organised the event and the librarians who selected the shortlist.

What a day! A boy brought a Goliath beetle to the signing queue, for me to meet. I plotted a murder with over 250 kids. I saw an old friend whom I love, and I learned that Jack Meggitt-Phillips can tap dance.

It was truly unforgettable.

Thank you to all Twitch readers, voters and bird lovers. You’ve made this author very happy.

Spark is shortlisted for the CrimeFest award 2023

When Twitch won the CrimeFest Best Crime Novel for Children Award last year, I was over the moon. So you can imagine how pleased I am that Spark has been shortlisted for the same award. I think this pair of books are as good as each other, and as different as Twitch is from Jack.

You should totally check out the other authors on the shortlist, particularly the excellent Sharna Jackson and reader’s favourite Robin Stevens.

I can’t believe I’ll win the award for a second year, but I’m going to dream that it might. Huge thanks to CrimeFest for shortlisting Spark. It means a great deal to me.

World Book Day 2023

Every year, it is a huge joy to see your wonderful costumes on World Book Day.

I like to celebrate readers’ awesomeness by gathering the images I’m sent online into a gallery so that you know that I’ve seen your costumes and how wonderful they are! This year the costumes were off the chart levels of amazing. I’m truly blown away.

I hope you all had a wonderful World Book Day!

If you dressed up as a character from one of my books this year, I would like to thank you, because I am honoured that you have enjoyed my stories enough to make this effort to create a costume, and it makes me so happy to see them.

If you want to send me a picture to add to the gallery, you can post it on a social media platform and @ me in or email it to info@mgleonard.com