Ireland’s Laureate na nÓg, Sarah Crossan, took home the Young Adult award for her verse novel Toffee at the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards in central London last night.
The BAMB awards are curated annually by bookshops in the UK and Ireland. Afterwards, Crossan, already the recipient of numerous awards for her writing, expressed her delight and said: “This one is particularly special because it’s voted on by readers themselves”.
Toffee, the story of an unlikely friendship between a runaway teenage girl and an elderly woman with dementia, was chosen along with eight other winners, including Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming and No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, the collected speeches of Greta Thunberg.
Other Irish writers nominated for awards were Rónán Hession for his novel Leonard and Hungry Paul and Kit de Waal for her YA novel, Becoming Dinah.
Along with host Jordan Stephens from rap duo Rizzle Kicks, a packed audience in Foyle’s flagship bookshop on Charing Cross Road celebrated seven out of eight wins overall for women authors from five different countries, including Caroline Criado Pérez, Madeline Miller, Catherine Bruton and Bridget Collins.
