You Must Bring a Hat crowned Sainsbury’s ‘Children’s Book of the Year’

You Must Bring A Hat by Simon Philip and Kate Hindley (Simon & Schuster) was announced as the ‘book of the year’ at the Sainsbury Children’s Book Awards 2016.

The book, published in June, is about a boy who is invited to his friend Nigel’s party. The only condition for guests is they must wear a hat. The boy can only find a hat on the head of a nearby monkey, so decides to take the monkey with him along to the party.

You Must Bring a Hat won the ‘book of the year’ prize after earlier winning the picture book award, beating off competition from the other category winners.

Pete Selby, head of music and books at Sainsbury’s said Sainsbury’s launched the awards in 2014 to both “celebrate and sell books”. The retailer has sold 87,000 copies of the shortlisted titles to date  and last year’s winner, Benji Davies’ Grandad’s Island (Simon & Schuster), sold 6,000 copies in Sainsbury’s shops in the aftermath of last year’s awards. The 2016 shortlist and award winners will now be promoted in 300 Sainsbury’s shops nationwide for a period of two weeks.