Cath Senker wins the 2018 ALCS educational writers’ award

  • 0
  • December 8, 2018

9781445155197

Nibweb member Cath Senker is this year’s winner of the ALCS Educational Writers’ award – for her book on refugees:  Far From Home, published by Franklin Watts.

She was given the award by on the evening of Tuesday, 4 December, at the All Party Writers’ Group (APWG) Winter Reception, where she  took the opportunity to express her gratitude to Franklin Watts and her editor, Amy Pimperton, for commissioning the book at the height of the Middle East refugee crisis.

She received the ward on a rather extraordinary evening, when the government was in the process of being defeated no less than three times. MP Tom Watson, who was awarding the prize, had to break off in the middle  to go and vote: the division bell was ringing almost constantly.

Cath says, ‘I couldn’t have written the book without the refugees and volunteers who shared their stories. I wanted to give refugees a voice in the book so that readers could learn what it’s like having to flee your home, leaving everything behind to embark on a long, difficult, dangerous journey to an unknown destination. How does it feel to arrive in a new country and how do local people respond to refugees? I was also determined to present the issues in a non-judgemental way so that children could discuss them and make up their own minds.’

She plans to share the prize money among refugee organisations that helped her to write the book.

Far From Home by Cath Senker: published by Franklin Watts, ISBN: 9781445155203

And another winner …

Anne Rooney‘s Dinosaur Atlas was this year’s winner at the School Library Association awards in November.

images

Dinosaur Atlas written by by Anne Rooney and illustrated by  James Gilleard, published by Lonely Planet, ISBN 9781786577184

Leave a Reply