Last Friday, nearly 700 young bookworms from local schools filled our Theatre to celebrate the Biblio-Buzz initiative and announce the winners of the Alexandra Palace Children’s Book Awards 2025!

The Awards invite young readers aged 9-12 to dive into six shortlisted books, join engaging workshops, vote for their favourite story, and meet the authors at the grand ceremony.

Check out our TikTok below to see what our Creative Learning Team captured on the day!

This year, the young people decided on The Island at the Edge of Night by Lucy Strange as their winning novel, which follows Faye Fitzgerald, a boarding school pupil on a remote island, as she uncovers its dark secrets and confronts the truth about her own past.

The annual Biblio-Buzz campaign is part of Alexandra Palace’s Creative Learning programme. It harnesses the power of literature to inspire young minds and spark a love of reading and libraries. The project is a collaboration between the Palace, Haringey Library Service, schools, librarians, professional authors, publishers, and local bookshops.

The young users of Haringey Library services voted for Bird Boy by Catherine Bruton a powerful story that explores grief, strength and the healing power of nature.

Winner, Lucy Strange: “I’m SO proud to have won the 2025 Alexandra Palace Children’s Book Award! The Biblio-Buzz programme is just brilliant because it reaches a huge amount of children and gets them genuinely excited about books, and the stunning setting of Alexandra Palace really is the icing on the cake – what a venue! What a day! I was over the moon to be part of it all and I’m thrilled to have won – the whole thing has been a highlight of my career as a children’s author. Huge thanks to all involved!”

We were delighted to have Radio 1Xtra’s Fee Mak, and 2022 winner Jack Meggitt-Phillips to host the ceremony this year, who are both passionate about making reading accessible to young audiences.

Radio 1Xtra’s Fee Mak: “Biblio-Buzz was truly a one of a kind experience. It’s like Glastonbury for young kids who love reading! Seeing how excited they were to meet their authors and ask them questions was incredible. I genuinely wish I had the Biblio-Buzz awards growing up!”

Jack Meggitt-Phillips, internationally bestselling author of The Beast and the Bethany: “It was a thrill and a delight to host this year’s awards. This prize generates unparalleled levels of excitement for reading, and it’s so important to give young readers an opportunity to celebrate brilliant authors and their books in the kind of space that’s usually reserved for actors and rockstars. The awards ceremony is the highlight of my year, and my favourite thing about Biblio-Buzz is the sheer, unadulterated energy and enthusiasm that the children unleash inside the beautiful palace theatre.”

This year the official suppliers of Biblio-Buzz 2025 were Muswell Hill Children’s Bookshop and Pickled Pepper Books who provided discounted packs of the shortlisted books to schools or individuals who took part in Biblio-Buzz.

Read more about our Creative Learning programme.