It is here! We are delighted to announce the shortlist for 2024 Young Quills Awards for Historical Fiction. You can read reviews of all this year's entries here.

For readers aged 5-8 years

Title	Author	Publisher
Moving the Millers' Minnie Moore Mine Mansion	Dave Eggers (illus Júlia Sardà)	Walker
The Most Famous Rhinoceros	Dianne Hofmeyr (illus Simona Mulazzani)	Otter-Barry Books
The Storm and the Minotaur	Lucy Strange	Barrington Stoke

For readers aged 8–11 years

Title	Author	Publisher
Stone Arrows	Elizabeth Barber	The Book Guild
Operation Banana	Tony Bradman	Barrington Stoke
Code Name Kingfisher	Liz Kessler	Simon & Schuster
Blackbeard's Treasure	Iszi Lawrence	Bloomsbury Education
Fablehouse	E. L. Norry	Bloomsbury
A Different Kind of Freedom: A Romani Story	Richard O'Neill	Scholastic
Vita and the Gladiator	Ally Sherrick	Chicken House

For readers aged 11-13 years

Title	Author	Publisher
The Song Walker	Zillah Bethell	Usborne
The Stolen Songbird	Judith Eagle	Faber
Rivet Boy	Barbara Henderson	Cranachan
Where the River Takes Us	Lesley Parr	Bloomsbury
The Diary of Sarah Forbes Bonetta: A Novel	Victoria Princewill	Scholastic
Wolf Road	Alice Roberts	Simon & Schuster
Through Water and Fire	Matt Wainwright	Wakeman Trust

For readers aged 14+ years

Title	Author	Publisher
How Far We've Come	Joyce Efia Harmer	Simon & Schuster
The Wolf-Girl, the Greeks and the Gods	Tom Holland  (Illus Jason Cockcroft)	Walker
Betrothal and Betrayal: The Empress Irini Series - Book 1	Janet McGiffin	Scotland Street Press
The Wall Between Us	Dan Smith	Chicken House
Stateless	Elizabeth Wein	Bloomsbury

The first stage of the Young Quills process is to send the books accepted onto the longlist to schools to be reviewed by children. That means that every single book has been reviewed several times – those reviews then create the foundation for the shortlisting process.

We then publish a couple of reviews for every book on the longlist and a few more for those on the shortlist. It is exciting to publish the reviews of all the books as something positive was said about every single one of them and they all have been able to excite and intrigue young readers.

At the HA we have strict criteria for the Young Quills and historical fiction, which sometimes results in entertaining books not quite making the shortlist (if they don’t cover enough of the history for example). Nonetheless, we want to celebrate all those professional authors who dedicate their time to opening up the world of the past and the present to young people. Every one of those who reviewed the books has got something out of the reading and the reviewing process – thank you.

The shortlisted books are now with the final judging panel and we will announce the winners in July.