Launched in 2006, Page Turners is an initiative aimed at teenagers and young adults in the South East and has 15 schools taking part, across towns including Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells, Wadhurst and Paddock Wood. There are almost 400 young people in the respective Page Turners book groups.
Very simply, the Awards aim to get students reading and, through peer recommendation, discover books which they might not otherwise pick. Each year, there is a different theme – currently it’s ‘turning the page to tomorrow’ - and ten books are shortlisted. The books are divided into two categories – teen and young adult – and the team always hopes to find the next bestseller.
The reading cycle started in September and will culminate in an Awards Gala Evening in March, hosted by Weald of Kent Grammar School, where the winning books are revealed live.
“Discovering life through books is such a wonderful part of growing up,” says Joseph Oates, Partner at CooperBurnett. “We are so excited to be sponsoring the Awards Gala Evening in March and hearing more about the books which have been shortlisted by the students.”
The Page Turners team explains: “After months of reading, sharing, debating, agreeing, disagreeing, loving characters, hating characters, crying, laughing and eating lots of tasty biscuits, we are looking forward to the grand finale. We produce our own book trailers for the evening, host a book sale, invite great teen and young adult authors to come and talk to us, award prizes for various book-related competitions and, finally, discover the winning books, as chosen by all the student members of our reading groups.”
The shortlisted books for this year can be seen here: pageturnersbookaward.co.uk/previous-shortlists/2024-books/
