YA Book Prize 2025: Judging Panel Announced

The reward, run by The Bookseller publication in collaboration with Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF), celebrates the most effective YA fiction titles from the UK and Ireland. The victor of this year’s ₤ 2,000 award will be introduced in a real-time event at EIBF on Thursday 21st August 2025.

Wadey, that is the kids’s bookseller at independent bookshop Booka based in Oswestry, Shropshire, included: “I am so fired up to be on the YA Publication Prize judging panel for 2025. I can not wait to read this year’s shortlist!” As well as running a number of youngsters’s book clubs consisting of Publication Dragons for teenagers, Wadey is involved in picking Empathy Lab’s titles for additional trainees and sustains youths at the Attfield Youth Theater in her leisure.

Northumberland-based Almond is the author of several stories, including his launching Skellig, which won the Carnegie Medal in 1998, and A Tune for Ella Grey, which got on the first-ever YA Publication Reward shortlist; he has likewise composed a number of well as picture books, radio programmes and plays. He is emeritus professor of innovative writing at Bathroom Health facility College and was awarded an OBE for solutions to literary works in 2021. He stated: “It’s an honour to be involved with this crucial reward. Books for youngsters go to the heart of our culture. I’m truly anticipating being pleased and stunned by what shows up.”

2025 YA Publication Prize: Judges

Award-winning children’s and young person (YA) writer David Almond OBE has actually joined the judging panel for the YA Publication Prize 2025, along with fellow author and BookToker Busayo Matuluko and kids’s bookseller Sian Wadey.

Almond, Matuluko and Wadey will select the YA Publication Prize 2025 victor from a 10-strong shortlist to be announced in June 2025 together with EIBF’s schools and youngsters programme supervisor Rachel Fox, with input from teenage viewers. The panel will certainly be chaired by The Bookseller’s youngsters’s and deputy functions editor, Caroline Carpenter.

Matuluko is a registered nurse and award-nominated BookToker whose debut YA enigma ‘Til Death was released by Simon & Schuster Children’s UK in January 2025. She commented: “Not just do I really feel honoured, I really feel exceptionally flattered to be able to judge the YA Book Prize 2025. I have been reading YA since possibly prior to I was also enabled to, so this is a cycle minute for me.”

Northumberland-based Almond is the writer of numerous books, including his debut Skellig, which won the Carnegie Medal in 1998, and A Track for Ella Grey, which was on the first-ever YA Publication Reward shortlist; he has likewise composed a number of well as picture books, radio programmes and plays. She commented: “Not only do I really feel honoured, I feel extremely flattered to be able to judge the YA Book Prize 2025. Wadey, who is the youngsters’s bookseller at independent bookshop Booka based in Oswestry, Shropshire, included: “I am so thrilled to be on the YA Book Prize judging panel for 2025.