The Unforgotten Coat shortlisted in Costa Book Awards

Absolutely fantastic news - The Unforgotten Coat, the book written exclusively for The Reader Organisation for Our Read 2011 by the brilliant Frank Cottrell Boyce, has been included in the shortlist for the Costa Book Awards 2011!

Running since 1971 (when they were known as the Whitbread Literary Awards), the Costa Book Awards are one of the biggest and most prestigious literary prizes in the UK, recognising a range of the most widely enjoyable books of the year by writers based in the UK and Ireland. The awards are also unique for being the only literary prize which places an equal emphasis on children's books alongside adult literature.

The Unforgotten Coat has been nominated in the Children's Book category. The accolade tops off what has been an amazing year for Our Read, with 50,000 copies of the book captivating hundreds of thousands of children (and adults) across the UK - and beyond (we've received postcards from Our Read readers as far afield as Spain, Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria and Hong Kong). The Our Read launch day took a special reading train from Liverpool to London and back (with Frank himself on board) and since then, there's been tons of other events centered around The Unforgotten Coat. We'd like to offer our congratulations to Frank for this honour and thank him for 'giving' the book to Our Read - we couldn't have done it without him.

The category winners will be announced on 4th January 2012. For more information on the awards, visit the Costa Book Awards website.