The Unforgotten Coat: 1

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We are meeting to celebrate yet another of Cottrell Boyce's recent achievements. On Wednesday night he won the Guardian children's fiction prize, his second major award for children's writing following a Carnegie medal in 2004 for his first book Millions. The Unforgotten Coat, which saw off competition from Roddy Doyle, Eva Ibbotson and Russell Hoban, could hardly be more different from the five-go-mad-in-motor shenanigans of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Originally commissioned by Liverpool charity the Reader Organisation, and inspired by the true story of a Mongolian girl he met on his first school visit, who left her coat behind when she was deported, The Unforgotten Coat is an offbeat tale of a brief crosscultural friendship, illustrated with photographs by Carl Hunter, a friend and bass player in Liverpool band the Farm. Hello Yellow - 80 Books to Help Children Nurture Good Mental Health and Support With Anxiety and Wellbeing - I thought it was funny," Cottrell Boyce says when I tell him it is a sad book. "You know when they're talking about football and it says 'he was still quite horsey in his thinking', being Mongolian?" It's true the book has some nice jokes, and the deportation does not end in disaster. The Guardian judges admired its humour as well as its originality. But Cottrell Boyce has a tear in his eye when he talks about Misheel, the real girl on whom the story is based, and the pride the local children took in her. This is a stunning magical story of a summer of friendship with darker undertones of the plight of refugees. Two refugee brothers from Mongolia are determined to fit in with their Liverpool schoolmates, but bring so much of Mongolia to Bootle that their new friend and guide, Julie, is hard-pressed to know truth from fantasy as she recollects a wonderful friendship that was abruptly ended when Chingis and his family were forced to return to Mongolia. Told with the humour, warmth and brilliance of detail which characterizes Frank Cottrell Boyce's writing, this magical and compelling story is enriched by stunning and atmospheric Polaroid photos.

Two refugee brothers from Mongolia arrive at a school in Bootle, and the stories and experiences that they share with their new friend and guide, Julie, will change the way she sees the people and places of her childhood forever. In Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the flying car with a mind of its own, he was presented with a readymade vehicle with which to attempt all these things. Compared with the highly personal ideas and experiences that lay behind previous books, the continuation of the Fleming brand looks baldly commercial. But there is charm and humour in Cottrell Boyce's two sequels (the original was published in three instalments: the plan is to copy this formula and call it a day). This is partly drawn from his pleasure in the fact that the original is that rare thing, an adventure story in which the parents are invited along.The judges read extensively and intensely in their search for the winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize this year, but decided unanimously that The Unforgotten Coat's great immediacy and humour really set it apart.

Being read to at school changed my life. I really became aware of that during the Olympics because we were all of us in that room drawing on stuff we'd read as children and none of it was stuff we were examined on, it wasn't anything measurable. It was stuff that people had shared with us that we went on to share. If you look at that ceremony and what was in it, it was a sense of wonderment in storytelling. We found we had this common heritage – Mary Poppins and so on." Selected by a distinguished independent panel of experts including our editorial expert, Julia Eccleshare, for Diverse Voices - 50 of the best Children's Books celebrating cultural diversity in the UK. They poked and pestered little Nergui, who still had his hat pulled right down, hiding his eyes. They kept telling him to make eagle noises. The kid – Nergui – huddled down in his coat, pulled his arms out of his sleeves and crossed them over his chest. His sleeves were flapping loose and he did fully look like a bird.Amnesty International UK 2019. Amnesty International UK Section Charitable Trust. A company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (03139939) and a charity registered in England and Wales (1051681) and Scotland (SC039534). Amnesty International United Kingdom Section. A company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (01735872). Registered office 17-25 New Inn Yard London EC2A 3EA.