RED HOUSE CHILDREN'S BOOK AWARD

The only literary prize to be judged entirely by young people has been awarded to Michael Morpurgo's tale of a First World War soldier.

The Red House Children's Book Award is judged on the basis of reviews from 25,000 children across the country.

Michael was inspired to write PRIVATE PEACEFUL after visiting Ypres to speak at a conference on writing. While there he discovered that 300 British soldiers - some still in their teens - had been executed, most for desertion and cowardice, when they were traumatised by their ordeals and in deep shock.

PRIVATE PEACEFUL is published by HarperCollins in paperback.

David Higham clients swept the board at the awards event with Gwyneth Rees' THE MUM HUNT taking the award for younger fiction and Kes Gray's BILLY'S BUCKET (illustrated by Garry Parsons) winning the picture book category.