2025 Event

The 2025 York Book Award Event was held at St Peter’s York on the afternoon of Friday 21st March.

Over 100 students from across York joined together for an afternoon of celebrating reading and creativity, representing York High School, Vale of York Academy, Manor CE Academy, All Saints RC School, the Joseph Rowntree School, Millthorpe School and St Peter’s School.

They were joined by four of this year’s shortlisted authors: Alexandra Dawe, author of The Stitchwort Curse, Tom Palmer, author of Angel of Grasmere, and Julian Sedgwick and Chie Kutsuwada, co-authors and illustrator of 100 Tales from the Tokyo Ghost Café.

Sadly Nathanael Lessore, author of King of Nothing, and Katherine Rundell, author of Impossible Creatures, couldn’t be with us, but it was great watching a video from Nathanael answering some questions from participating students.

The York Book Award was also honoured to be supported by the Lord Mayor of York, Councillor Margaret Wells, and the Sheriff of York, Ms Fiona Fitzpatrick, as well as Claire Wesley, Master of the York Company of Merchant Taylors, who kindly donated book bundles of the shortlist to every state secondary school in York to help promote creativity and engagement with reading.

Students and guests heard each of the shortlisted authors speak about their work, and then the student prizes were announced. There are two student awards given each year, one for Best Creative Response to one of the shortlisted books, and one for Best Review.

The afternoon ended with the announcement of the student-voted winner of the 2025 York Book Award. After an incredibly close vote, Tom Palmer took the trophy for his beautiful novel, Angel of Grasmere!