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A picture book that questions the trustworthiness of fish; a retelling as Gaeilge of Puss in Boots; a teenager living with Tourette’s and a science-fiction YA novel that takes the reader on a train journey to a world of different time zones – these are just four of this year’s 10 shortlisted publications for the KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards.
The shortlist, which also features stories on neurodiversity, life after a terrorist attack and grief following the loss of a parent, was announced by Rick O’Shea at a special event in the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast.
Elaina Ryan, CEO of Children’s Books Ireland, said: “This year’s KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards shortlist has something to delight every kind of reader. There are stories steeped in Irish mythology, tales of bravery and resilience and books that will move you to tears – or make you cry laughing. It’s wonderful to see how children’s literature and publishing in Ireland is evolving through this diverse, excellent shortlist. Our warm congratulations go to the authors, illustrators and publishers whose wonderful work we are so proud to champion.”
The shortlisted titles will be in contention for six awards at the ceremony on May 18th as part of the International Literature Festival Dublin. The awards include the prestigious KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Book of the Year, alongside categories celebrating excellence in fiction and illustration, and the highly-coveted Junior Juries’ Award, which is selected by young readers from across Ireland.
This year’s shortlisted books are:
Letters to a Monster by Laureate na nOg Patricia Forde and illustrated by Sarah Warburton; The Doomsday Club by Kevin Moran; Solo by Grainne O’Brien; Puisin na mBrog by Fearghas Mac Lochlainn and illustrated by Paddy Donnelly; My Name Is Jodie Jones by Emma Shevah; The Waters and the Wild by Eilish Fisher and illustrated by David Rooney; This That What by Katy Ashworth and illustrated by Colleen Larmour; Stealing Happy by Brian Conaghan; Don’t Trust Fish! by Neil Sharpson and illustrated by Dan Santat; and Skipshock by Caroline O’Donoghue.
Damian Smyth, joint Head of Literature and Drama at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland said: “The books we connect with in childhood are often the ones which we hold in our hearts for life and these annual awards recognise some of the most outstanding books published in the last year across a range of age categories and genres. Congratulations to all of the immensely talented writers and illustrators who have made this year’s shortlist.”
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Two Irish creators have been shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2026. Jamie Carroll, an author-illustrator from Dublin, is shortlisted for his picture book Milo and the Mountain and author Gráinne O’Brien, from Clare and now living in Limerick, is nominated for her verse novel for older readers, Solo.
Milo and the Mountain by Jamie Carroll is an exquisitely illustrated and gentle tale of determination and friendship in which Milo attempts to overcome his fear of climbing a mountain. Carroll, who works in the animation industry, said: “Milo and the Mountain is a simple story with a big message – if you are struggling to overcome something, it’s a great idea to ask family or friends for help. I think that this is an extremely important thing for children to understand from as young an age as possible. I put off making a children’s book for years, for fear of failure. Making this book was my way of climbing my own mountain.
“I feel so excited every time I see Milo and the Mountain in a bookshop, surrounded by other books. When it was longlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2026 it felt like winning. To now be shortlisted is beyond anything I’d ever allow myself to dream of. I’m so proud of this book and I feel very grateful and humbled that it has been shortlisted for this incredible award”.
Solo by Gráinne O’Brien is a lyrical and moving novel in verse about the emotional ups and downs of heartbreak and the healing power of music. Following young musician Daisy and her trials and tribulations regarding family, friendship and musical ambition. O’Brien, a bookseller with Kenny’s Bookshop in Galway, said: “This is incredible and quite frankly, utterly overwhelming. I’m thrilled for myself and all the people that have worked so hard to get Solo on to shelves and into hands of readers.
“I wrote Solo because I wanted to see a book on the shelves that told teenagers that small things matter. That our first heartbreaks matter, our first friendship breaks matter and what happens to our families and in own homes matter.”
Solo won Teen & YA Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2025
This is Irish small press Little Island Books’ second title on the Waterstones Prize shortlist after Meg Grehan’s The Deepest Breath. Publisher Matthew Parkinson-Bennett said: “As a three-person team in a small office in Dublin, getting onto on tosame majorbige shortlists as publishers that measure their turnover in the hundreds of millions is what gets us out of bed on a cold wet morning!
“Publishing is still an industry where the little guy can go toe-to-toe with the goliaths, and we’re really grateful to Waterstones, KPMG and Children’s Books Ireland for acknowledging the work done by indie publishers. We are thrilled for Gráinne O’Brien (and delighted to be publishing her next two books!) and grateful as ever to our funders, chief among them The Arts Council of Ireland.”
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In The Irish Times tomorrow, Mark Haddon tells Pat Carty about his painful relationship with his parents captured in his new book, Leaving Home: A Memoir in Full Colour. And there is a Q&A with award-winning crime writer Elly Griffiths.
Reviews are Daniel Geary on Made in America: The Dark History that Led to Donald Trump by Edward Stourton; Declan Burke on the best new scifi; Michael O’Loughlin on Pat Ingoldsby’s poetry; Declan Ryan on the best new poetry collections; John Boyne on Crux by Gabriel Tallent; Maija Makela on Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash; Adrienne Murphy on Celtic Magic: A Practitioner’s Guide by Brigid Ehrmantraut; Miriam Balanescu on Rebecca Perry’s May We Feed the King; Edel Coffey on Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray; Sally Hayden on The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine; Sinéad Gibney on Swiftynomics; Adam Wyeth on Intimate Power by Catherine Morris; and Conor O’Clery on Exit Stalin: The Soviet Union as a Civilization, 1953-1991 by Mark B. Smith.
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The Ireland Chair of Poetry is delighted to announce the Spring Series for 2026 by the new Ireland Professor of Poetry, Vona Groarke. Groarke has just begun her three-year tenure (2025–2028) in residence at Trinity College Dublin for the Spring Semester.
As part of the series, Groarke will deliver a public lecture entitled A Lonely Began: The Poem Alone and the Poem in Company in the Edmund Burke Arts Building, Trinity College Dublin, on Thursday, February 26th, at 7.30pm. Advance booking is essential; please reserve your place via the link here.
Groarke’s lecture will “look at the relationship between poets, poems and loneliness. Often perceived as a solitary figure, sometimes embracing and sometimes resisting that aloneness, poets seem magnetically drawn to the subject of loneliness. This lecture will think about how poets write about it, and have their poems acknowledge, embody or defy that intrinsic loneliness.”
The lecture will be repeated in the Great Hall, Queen’s University Belfast, on Friday, March 20th, at 7pm. Tickets for it will be available shortly.
On April 9th, Groarke will give a public reading at the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI), St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, from across her distinguished body of work, drawing on her 15 books, from Shale (1994) to Infinity Pool (2025).
All events in the Spring Series are free of charge, but seating is limited and pre-booking is essential.
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Bestselling author Paul Howard returns with an audacious novel about the vexed National Question. A Nation Once Again will be published on August 27th by Sandycove.
Howard said: “I am very excited that Sandycove is publishing A Nation Once Again, my first toe back in the waters of satirical fiction since finishing the Ross O’Carroll-Kelly series almost two years ago. This is a book I’ve wanted to write for a long time – if even just to prove to myself that I can write in a voice other than that of a privileged South Dublin idiot. Old habits die hardest! I can’t wait to get the book out there into the hands of readers.”
Patricia Deevy, deputy publisher, said: “Only someone with Paul’s genius, intelligence and humanity could take on the National Question, turn it into comic gold – and still leave you thinking. A Nation Once Again is inventive and hilarious about the big issues, while also being in the tradition of beloved sitcoms – think The Thick of It-meets-Father Ted. Paul’s 40th book shows him at his brilliant best – wildly funny, utterly big-hearted and painfully recognisable.”
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Two Irish titles have made the longlist for the 17th Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction – Venetian Vespers by John Banville and Eden’s Shore by Oisín Fagan.
Also listed are The Two Roberts by Damian Barr; Helm by Sarah Hall; The Pretender by Jo Harkin; Boundary Waters by Tristan Hughes; The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly; Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko; Benbecula by Graeme MacRae Burnet; Once the Deed Is Done by Rachel Seiffert; The Artist by Lucy Steeds; and Seascraper by Benjamin Wood.
Chair of judges Katie Grant, said: “As always, compiling the Longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction isn’t easy, and again, as always, we’re guided by our criteria: originality, innovation, ambition, durability and quality of writing. The 2026 list spans all human experience and emotional intensity, with our authors crafting their work on both the small domestic canvas and broader, more epic scale. And readers be warned: in amongst the clever, the funny, the poignant, the piquant, the moving, the intriguing and the surprising, in this year’s list you’ll find writing so visceral it will remain with you long after you have closed the book.”
The winner receives £25,000, and each shortlisted author is awarded £1,500. A shortlist will be announced in April and the winner at the Borders Book Festival in June.
Previous winners include On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry (2012); Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (2017); The Narrow Land by Christine Dwyer Hickey (2020); and These Days by Lucy Caldwell (2023).
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The Outsiders Who Built Irish Entertainment: Maurice and Louis Elliman by Wendy Elliman will be launched by Theatre Royal historian Conor Doyle in the Irish Jewish Museum, 3 Walworth Road, Dublin 8, on Sunday, February 22nd, at 3pm. Booking is essential: events@jewishmuseum.ie
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The Friends of Trinity College Library spring programme will commence on Thursday, February 19th at 5pm, in the Máirtín Uí Chadhain Lecture Theatre (Room 2041B), Arts Building Concourse, Trinity College. Dr Immo Warntjes, History School, TCD, will speak on The quest for the first scientific biography of St Patrick: John Bagnell Bury & Heinrich Zimmer. Admission free, all welcome, no booking required.
Zimmer (1851-1910) was Germany’s first professor of Celtic Studies. His biography of St Patrick is regarded as a foundation document for modern scientific research on Ireland’s national saint. Zimmer completed a study of St Patrick in 1894, but it was never published. When Zimmer’s private library burned down in 1903, the manuscript survived but with significant fire-damage. The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, Trinity College Dublin and the Irish Government through the Department of Foreign Affairs, are working in partnership to restore this important document.
The 33rd Trinity Secondhand Booksale 2026 will be held from the evening of Tuesday, February 10th to lunchtime on Thursday 12th. See opening times here or download a circular here. Books for this sale can no longer be accepted; book donations will recommence in April.
On March 26th, Dr Joseph Brady will speak about his new book on Killester, and on April 23rd, Ciara Daly will talk about the new Michael Davitt exhibition in the Long Room.
