Priory pupils to judge Lancashire Book of the Year

Priory’s Year 9 pupils will be bookworms over the next few months as they aim to read around ten books each to help to choose the Lancashire Book of the Year. 

Priory has been selected as one of the schools in the county to receive a collection of around 26 new books which a number of Year 9 pupils have volunteered to read. 

The pupils’ first external meeting about the books was at Lancashire Archives early Friday morning to discuss the novels with pupils from other schools. 

English teacher and Chief Librarian, Mrs Elliott said: “There are around 90 books on the list and we have been sent around 26 to read. Many of our keen readers volunteered to take part and they are enjoying the challenge. 

“Tom said he read a book he would never have selected on his own but he enjoyed it so this is good as it takes pupils out of their comfort zone with their reading. 

“Once we have read them, we have to whittle them down to either a top ten or five and then we go and discuss them with other schools. 

“That is a big step, it’s about building their confidence and feeling confident to share their views and challenge others about books. 

“It’s always a good competition and, at the end, there is a big event where the winning authors come to UCLAN and talk about their books and how they got their ideas so our pupils can follow the process through.” 

Tom said: “I want to read as many of the books as I can. I think we will all try and read at least 10 each but hopefully more. It’s a good competition as it means you read books you wouldn’t normally read. It will be interesting to see which book wins overall.”  

Lancashire Book of the Year (LBOY) is the longest running young people's regional book award in the country. 

The award remains one of the few book awards in which young people themselves are solely responsible for choosing both the shortlist and the overall winning book. 

The award is voted for by Year 9 students in selected high schools around the county. Each school is given a collection of books, submitted by publishers as being the best books they had produced for the 12-14 age group. The young people then read and shortlist the books before choosing the overall winner.

The 2022 winner was Cynthia Murphy for her novel Last One To Die.

Pupils taking part are: 

Daniel McC,  AJ F, Eve F, Thomas M, Jake L, Hannah B, Ethan R, Geetha D-R, Emily J, Tasha C