Books are awesome!!

Welcome to the Doncaster Book Award, where we've been celebrating the joy of reading since 2004!

The DBA Virtual Launch 2021, with special guests Clare Balding and Liz Million, took place on Monday 12th April and was LIVE STREAMED here on the website. You can still visit our Launch Page to watch the whole event!

Things will be a little different this year, as our events will have to take place virtually, but they will still be great fun, and we hope that as many of you as possible will join us.

Importantly, what definitely hasn’t changed is that you, our readers, are still in charge and your votes alone will choose our winners!

Fabulous Finale

We are now steaming down the track towards this year's exciting Finale event! We have some fabulous guests for you and of course will be announcing your choice for this year's winning book. Make sure you vote for your favourite: all entries to be in by 25th June!

Please watch the short film below for more details of the Finale Event with M G Leonard, Sam Sedgman and Liz Million. Please send your questions for our authors to lynnecoppendale@doncasterbookaward.net!

We hope you can join us on the day!!

Enter our amazing TRAINS competition!

This year’s book awards theme is ‘steam trains’. We want you to write a poem about trains to celebrate Doncaster’s rich heritage for constructing the greatest steam trains of all time. We also want your school to recite Robert Louis Stevenson’s spectacular poem ‘From a Railway Carriage’ for us.

For full details of the competition please watch the video below and visit our competitions page.

Book Lists

As always, we have a truly wonderful selection of stories for you to enjoy. On our lists are books that will make you laugh, make you cry, take you to wondrous places and let you join the characters on amazing adventures. Our Shortlist lets you discover some fabulous new books that will be favourites in the future, whilst our Classics list has books that have been chosen by Doncaster children in their recently-voted top 100 reads.

Reader Reviews

As ever, we want to hear all about what you think of the books, so head over to our Reviews Page and send us your reviews and comments. Reviews can be as detailed as you like (though please don’t give away the endings!!) and prizes will be awarded by the DBA committee for the best reviews. Voting will take place in July, and the winning books will be announced at our Finale event.

How Do I Join In?

You can take part in the Award either with your school, or from home. All you have to do is read the books, send us your reviews and comments, and vote for your favourites. Keep checking here to find out everything that’s happening – we will add details of our events as soon as they are available. You can take part in our writing competition right now – check out our competitions page for details.

Let your reading adventures begin!!

Our Mission Statement

The Doncaster Book Award strives to promote reading for pleasure among our young people, in order to create a positive attitude towards books and reading and to extend reading choices. This will, in turn, lead to improved literacy levels, better educational outcomes and thus improve future economic prospects for Doncaster’s children. We also strive to provide children with opportunities for new and exciting experiences based around books and reading, to encourage positive social interaction between young people from all parts of the Borough and thus help make Doncaster a thriving reading community.