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What a year! Narrowing down our incredibly strong longlist to the five titles below was incredibly tough – as was deciding the longlist from a record number of entries to begin with!

Below, you’ll find two shortlists – one for The Times / Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition, and the other for The Broken Binding Prize. Both awards offer the winners a worldwide publishing contract with Chicken House and a £10,000 royalty advance, plus a discussion about representation with a relevant agent judge. The Broken Binding Prize is open to YA sci-fi, fantasy, and speculative fiction, whereas The Times / Chicken House prize is open to MG and YA writers of all genres.

The Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition Shortlist

DeathStream by Ryan Fitzgerald

Emma and the Spy Beluga by Laura Caroniti

Garbage and Ghosts by Heather Knutson

The Queen and the Quill by Tarasyn Hanna

Technicolour Dreaming by Melanie Dylan

The Broken Binding Prize Shortlist

A Fall from the Rise by Jodie Savill

Controllers by Mel Green

Khazarya: Tale of Thane by Aryah Bukhari

By the Blood of the Great Tree by Katelyn S. Alcott

Butterfly of Night by Darcy McLaughlin

Huge congratulations to our shortlisted authors – this is a huge achievement! To anyone who was longlisted but didn’t reach the shortlist, we’ll be providing you with a reader’s report with some feedback from our team.

The next stage ...

The shortlisted manuscripts are now in the hands of our industry-leading judges, and we’ll be announcing the rest in November.

To keep up-to-date with all competition news, follow our dedicated Instagram here.