Voting closes on May 12th 2008

You can help choose the nation's favourite children's book! Voting closes on Monday 12 May 2008 and the winner will be announced at Hay Festival on Friday 30 May 2008.

The winners will be announced on May 30th at Hay Festival

How to vote

There are two voting options available - individual voting and group voting.

Please take a look at the shortlisted titles for 2008 before casting your vote. Rather than just voting for your favourite book, you must place all four books in order of preference (your favourite book comes 1st, your next favourite 2nd and so on)

There are three categories to vote in:

  • Younger Children
  • Younger Readers
  • Older Readers

You can vote in as many or as few categories as you like, but can only vote once per category - duplicated votes will not be counted.

You can always download a voting form here and send it back to the address on the form.

Individual voting

This is the ability to vote yourself rather than as part of a class or group. Vote now in one or more of these categories:
Younger Children
Younger Readers
Older Readers

Group voting

This allows a number of people voting as a group or class to submit their votes together. This method of voting is slightly more complicated than individual voting, so please take a look at the instructions below before voting. Then vote in one or more of these categories:
Younger Children
Younger Readers
Older Readers

Group voting instructions

The easiest way to collect group votes is to collect the data in a table like the example below (one table for each category you are voting in) and then transfer this to the online voting form.

Example voting form for your group for one category
Names BOOK 1 BOOK 2 BOOK 3 BOOK 4
Erin 1st 4th 2nd 3rd
Tom 2nd 1st 3rd 4th
James 3rd 1st 4th 2nd
Mel 4th 3rd 1st 2nd
Amy 3rd 1st 2nd 4th
Sam 3rd 1st 4th 2nd

In the example above there are 6 children voting in this class. Each child gives each book a position from 1st to 4th based on their own order of preference.

You will then need to total up the number of 1st place votes for each book, then 2nd place votes and so on. Use this information to complete the online voting form (see below). The votes for each position and the votes for each book should total the number of children who voted, in this case 6.

Example of online group voting form for one category
1st 2nd 3rd 4th
TOTALS
The Tear Thief
A Dog Called Rod
Penguin
Sir Charlie Stinky Socks and the Really Big Adventure

Don't worry, if your totals don't add up on the voting form, you will be prompted to correct them before submitting your votes!