Ross Montgomery named overall winner of Children’s Book Award for I Am Rebel

Ross Montgomery has been named overall winner of the Children’s Book Award (CBA) 2025 for his book I Am Rebel (Walker Books), which also won the Books for Younger Readers category before taking the top prize.

The book, “a heartwarming adventure about the unbreakable bond between a dog and his human, captivated readers nationwide”.

Now in its 45th year, the Children’s Book Award is the only national award for children’s books that is voted for entirely by children. It is owned and co-ordinated by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups (FCBG).

The 10 titles on the shortlist for the Books for Younger Children, Books for Younger Readers and Books for Older Readers categories, were chosen by children nationwide across 250 schools who read and voted for the books throughout the year as part of the network of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups. This year, 30,000 votes were cast during the Top 10 voting stage.

Montgomery, who was previously shortlisted in 2022 for The Midnight Guardians (Walker Books), fought off competition this year from Hannah Gold’s Turtle Moon (HarperCollins Children’s Books) and the first in Alex Atkinson’s new horror-mystery series, Spooksmiths Investigate (Usborne Publishing).

In the category for younger children, Grotti (Walker Books), written and illustrated by Leonie Lord, took the top spot against Tom Percival’s The Bridges (S&S Children’s Books), My Friend Andy by Emma Chinnery (Little Tiger) and A Wild Walk to School by Rebecca Cobb (Macmillan Children’s Books).

Seven Million Sunflowers by Malcolm Duffy (Zephyr) was voted favourite in the category for older readers, inspired by the author’s experiences of taking in a Ukrainian family fleeing the war. This “powerful and moving” story triumphed over Sam Sedgman’s The Clockwork Conspiracy (Bloomsbury Children’s Books) and Ditching Saskia by John Moore and Neetols (Flying Eye Books).

CBA coordinator, Sarah Stuffins, said: “Congratulations to Ross, and of course Leonie and Malcolm. We had 10 great and varied titles on the Top 10 this year and it is always fascinating to see which ones strike a particular chord with our young voters to become the children’s choice.”