The new Children’s Booker Prize aims to reward quality fiction for kids

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s most prestigious literary prize is getting a younger sibling.

The Booker Prize Foundation announced Friday that it is setting up the Children’s Booker Prize alongside its existing awards for English-language and translated fiction.

Like its sister prizes, the children’s award comes with a 50,000 pound ($67,000) purse.

The prize will open for submissions early next year and the inaugural award will be handed out in 2027, with the winner picked by a jury of children and adults led by writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Britain’s current children’s laureate.

Cottrell-Boyce, whose books include the Carnegie Medal-winning “Millions,” said he was “buzzing” about the prospect.

“It’s going to be – as they say – absolute scenes in there. Let the yelling commence,” he said.

Fu