Julia Donaldson, Barry Hutchison and Catherine MacPhail have been named as this year’s winners of the 2010 Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children’s Books.

These awards are notable for two reasons – they are Scotland’s largest Children’s Book Prize (each winner receives £3,000) and  they are voted for exclusively by Scottish children themselves.

Huge numbers of children take part voting process each year, with a record number of over 16,000 children from all over Scotland casting their vote for their favourite books this year, and almost a quarter of all Scottish schools registering to take part.

The key to the success of the awards with young people is the high quality, as well as the accessibility, of the writing in all the shortlisted titles. The three winning books are all fantastic stories that draw you in right from the start and don’t let you go until the last page is turned.

 We are very grateful to Royal Mail for their continued sponsorship of the awards, which allow us to introduce the many excellent authors and illustrators from across Scotland to children all around the country.

The development of literacy skills is, of course, a key focus of Curriculum for Excellence and these awards play an important role in encouraging reading and writing in the younger generation.

We are keen that the voting process is accessible to all children in Scotland, and with this in mind Scottish Book Trust once again teamed up with the Royal National Institute of Blind People Scotland who transcribed all nine shortlisted books into Braille, audio and large print format simultaneously. This means that hundreds of visually impaired children were able to take part in the judging alongside other young readers.

The Royal Mail Awards are managed by Scottish Book Trust in partnership with Creative Scotland and supported by the Times Educational Supplement Scotland (TESS) and Waterstone’s. Waterstone’s are running a three for two offer on all the shortlisted titles from the middle of February to the end of April 2011.

Visit www.scottishbooktrust.com for more information

Marc Lambert, CEO, Scottish Book Trust