Previous celebration events
2023 celebration event
We were delighted to have a live celebration again this year after the hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a wonderful afternoon with 2 of the winning authors there in person to collect their awards from the children. Big thanks to Bishop Ullathorne Catholic school who hosted the event for us and many of the participating schools brought groups of students along to meet the winning authors and hear from fellow pupils as to why they loved each of the winning books. We are planning to run a live celebration event again this year and we will post more details about this as soon as we are able to.
Events from 2020
2020 celebration event
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic we were unfortunately not able to have our usual celebration event. It is always a fun afternoon with many of the participating schools bringing groups of students along to meet the winning authors and hear from fellow pupils as to why they loved the book. However, we weren't going to let a global pandemic get in the way of us sharing the joy that the children, young people, teachers, librarians, authors and illustrators have had over the last year while taking part in the Book Awards. Therefore we created a virtual celebration event which can be watched and shared by everyone whether they are at home or in school.
Hooked on Books Quiz
On Thursday 24 January we held our inaugural Hooked on Books quiz. We had 11 teams participate from both Primary and Secondary schools across the city. The teams of four students had read all of the shortlisted books and were prepared to answer a wide range of questions about them. The questions were in themed rounds with an additional question at the end for any of the students to answer and instantly win a book prize. All of the teams did really well and the scores were extremely close, so close in fact that we had to have a tie breaker question to separate 2nd and 3rd places. The winning team was from President Kennedy with Ernesford Grange the 1st runner-up and Finham Park the 2nd runner-up. There was also a prize for the highest scoring Primary school team and this was won by Stoke Heath Primary. The students all had a really fun time and President Kennedy who hosted the event made everyone very welcome and even provided refreshments for all of the teams to have halfway through.
2019 celebration event
We celebrated the 13th year of the Book Awards at our star-studded event at the Ricoh Arena in June, thanks to our sponsors the Wasps Rugby Club. We had 150 pupils from 12 different schools from around the City aged between 6 and 16 come along to see their favourite books win their CIBA awards. We were fortunate that 3 of the winning authors/illustrators were able to join us in person and the children were very excited to get to meet them and get a book signed. The proceedings were started by Councillor Maton who had a few words to say about the importance of reading and books.
We had 6 schools presenting the awards with King Henry VIII pre-preparatory school presenting the What’s the Story award (best picture book for ages 4-7) to winners Jim Whalley and Stephen Collins for the hilarious book Baby’s first Bank Heist. Next came a very confident Year 2 pupil from Sidney Stringer Primary who told everybody why Mr Penguin and the Lost Treasure by Alex T. Smith was the deserving winner of the Telling Tales category (best book for ages 7-9). For the Hooked on Books category (best book for ages 9-12) we had the double treat of not one but 2 presentations. As this is the transition category that crosses over from the top end of Primary into the first couple of years of Secondary we had a group from Stoke Heath and President Kennedy telling us why the House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson. Our last 2 categories are for Secondary Schools with the winner of the Simply the Book category, Scythe by Neal Shusterman being presented by students from Cardinal Wiseman. Although Neal couldn’t be here for the celebration event as he lives in America many of our students were lucky enough to meet him back in December when he came to Coventry to do a multi-school event organised by Coventry School Library Service as part of a very short UK visit. Our final category is for all those teenagers who are short on time, Rapid Reads, quick read books for ages 11-16. This was won by Ann Evans for her scary book A Little Secret.
It was a brilliant afternoon with a wonderful buzz of excitement and enthusiasm as a room full of students of all ages talked about their favourite books, checked out new recommendations. Here are some quotes from some of the students about why they love taking part in the Coventry Inspiration Book Awards
- “Every Book was amazing and has inspired me to read”
- “The thing that I like about the books are that all of the books I’ve read were different types of genres”
- “I loved this event and look forward to more in other years”
- “The Book Awards has drawn me more into reading”
- “The favourite part of the experience was actually reading the books"
- "Reading books makes me feel happy”
- “The Book Awards are a great way to find new books to read"
Take a look at the photos from the 2019 celebration event.
