Results – Best Chapter Book for 5-8-year-olds 2024

Jennifer Hodgson with Grandma Shiz and the Fortune-Telling False Teeth

Jennifer won a poetry competition in middle school, which is where it all began. Then she became a teacher and mother, and life got busy. During the pandemic, she started writing again, took some local writing classes and joined the Golden Egg Academy. She has had writing published in local, independent poetry festivals and short story anthologies, and has been longlisted in other children’s writing competitions. Grandma Shiz and the Fortune-Telling False Teeth is her latest work in progress, alongside a middle grade fantasy adventure and picture books. She lives on the North East coast with her family, including a very cute yet sneaky cat, and an escapee rabbit who likes to make for an open gate at any opportunity. She can be found at @jenhodgsonwriter.

Helen Addyman with Hattie Houdini and the Disappearing Trombone

Helen Addyman has always had a penchant for storytelling. Given toy cars as a kid, hers would have names, personalities and be off to the shops (as her sisters’ vehicles vroomed past)! This passion for words led to a degree in French, German and Linguistics and, more recently, to writing kid lit and poetry. An active member of SCBWI and the WriteMentor Hub (and two fabulous critique groups), Helen has shortlisted and longlisted in competitions for both picture books and chapter books and was selected for WriteMentor’s summer mentoring programme in 2023. Helen’s children’s poetry has also been published in The Dirigible Balloon. Helen is thrilled to have two titles on the Best Chapter Book shortlist this year.

Helen Addyman with Woofy Secret Agent-in-Training

Helen Addyman has always had a penchant for storytelling. Given toy cars as a kid, hers would have names, personalities and be off to the shops (as her sisters’ vehicles vroomed past)! This passion for words led to a degree in French, German and Linguistics and, more recently, to writing kid lit and poetry. An active member of SCBWI and the WriteMentor Hub (and two fabulous critique groups), Helen has shortlisted and longlisted in competitions for both picture books and chapter books and was selected for WriteMentor’s summer mentoring programme in 2023. Helen’s children’s poetry has also been published in The Dirigible Balloon. Helen is thrilled to have two titles on the Best Chapter Book shortlist this year.

Ellie Salkeld with Pocket Monsters

Ellie’s been addicted to writing kid lit for several years now, and is drawn to stories that are funny or off-beat. After a career in overseas humanitarian relief operations, she wanted a bigger challenge, so had kids. Now a primary school teaching assistant, she gets to be a big kid every day, and especially enjoys helping kids discover the joy of stories. She’s especially passionate about crafting books that boys want to read, and shamelessly plunders her children’s imaginations and monster drawings, as well as the school corridors and playground, for inspiration. She’s also a doodler, filling the margins of whiteboards, notebooks and manuscript drafts with scratchy pictures of the characters in her head. Her chapter book Pocket Monsters is complete, and she will shortly be seeking representation for two other books.

Alex Hamill with Speed Chasers

Alex began her career as a primary school teacher. Her teaching adventures sparked her love of children’s books and took her to the northernmost school in Britain. Alex writes picture books and chapter books where she tries to capture the wonder and excitement of the world from a child’s perspective. Her stories have longlisted and now shortlisted in various competitions. Having completed Speed Chasers, she is working on new ideas. Alex lives in Dunblane with her family, bunnies and tortoise. She loves gardening and spending time in nature. Alex is an avid collector of fossils and gemstones and always carries a writing stone for inspiration.

Libby Hartwell with The Book Crook

Libby grew up in Cambridgeshire and spent most of her childhood daydreaming, doodling, singing and reading, as well as taking care of a pet menagerie. The menagerie grew to include a husband, children and a whole classroom full of kids! Now Libby spends her time daydreaming, doodling, teaching and writing young fiction. She loves nothing more than sharing books with children and watching their imaginations ignite as the stories wrap them in a cocoon of rhythm and sound. In 2023 Libby won the I Am In Print / Little Tiger Picture Book Prize with her story, Book Bot, and this year she was shortlisted for the WriteMentor Picture Book Award with her story, Could You Love a Frog? She was also runner-up for the 2024 WriteMentor Chapter Book Award with her story, Astro Ponies. Libby was thrilled to be shortlisted for the Searchlight Best Chapter Book Award and is on the lookout for an agent to champion her work.

Sue Meikle with The Granny Snatchers

Sue has always been ridiculously obsessed with picture books and after working as an Early Years Specialist for over 25 years, she’s read a fair few!

Sue has read stories to children far and wide…from Stockport to South Africa. In schools, in early years centres and whilst on forest school adventures. Sue has even read stories on a travelling play bus! So, perhaps it was always written in the stars for Sue to not just read books, but write them, too!

When she is not reading or writing stories, Sue can be found walking her dog or chauffeuring her teenagers around the Greater Manchester area (because that’s where they live…in a home that they made from a derelict barn!)

Sue is represented by Fiz Osborne at Creative Roots Studio.

Twitter: @Sue_N_Meikle

Louisa MacDougall with The Weaver’s Wish

Louisa lives in the Outer Hebrides, with a collection of sheep, chickens and children. An unpublished author when she entered this competition, she has had a busy summer and is now the author of three books: Rory and the Snack Dragons (a chapter book for age 6-8), the Highland Cowgirl (a picture book for age 3+) and the Great Auk’s Great Escape (a picture book inspired by a true story, for age 5+). Louisa has been shortlisted and longlisted in previous Searchlight Competitions. Her work is inspired by local landscapes and the adventures her daughters get up to on their family croft.

Jason Lang with Uncle Ulric’s Home for Unusual Animals

Jason is a primary teacher by day and a picture book and chapter book author by night −an alter ego that doesn’t strictly need the cape, but he likes to wear it anyway. He loves to read stories to his young son and daughter, as well as the children he teaches. Stories with joy, humour and heart: this is what he aims for in his own texts, too. 

Uncle Ulric’s Home for Unusual Animals is a completed manuscript and Jason is currently seeking representation. If you would wish to read the full text and any more of his writing−he thinks it’s pretty good if he does say so himself−then find him at @j_g_lang.