Sunday, July 5, 2026

The Alligator's Mouth Award

The Alligator's Mouth is a bookshop in Richmond, Surrey UK. One day I hope to visit this shop which is filled with a rich collection of children's books. 

The Alligator’s Mouth Award was founded in 2018 by specialist children’s bookshop The Alligator’s Mouth in partnership with The Bright Agency. The aim of the award is to champion and celebrate highly-illustrated fiction titles for 6–8-year-olds – an important, and often overlooked, category of books that helps children build reading stamina and gain confidence at a crucial stage of their reading journey.

These shortlisted titles and winners' lists are very useful if you are looking for titles to add to your library. The library where I volunteer has nearly all of these books and many are very popular choices with the students.

Here is the current short list and some previous lists:


2026 Winner Bear and Bird: The Secret and other stories

  • Bear and Bird: The Secret and Other Stories written and illustrated by Jarvis (Walker)
  • Beastie Bros: The Cabbage Juice Crime written and illustrated by David O’Connell (Scholastic)
  • Cat and Dumpling: Home Sweet Home written and illustrated by Nicola Kent (OUP)
  • Croaky: Caverns of the Gemosaurus written and illustrated by Matty Long (OUP)
  • Good Bits written by Kes Gray and illustrated by Ruby Wright (DK flip, DK Children's)

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