#WBOTY20: Children & Young People’s Award Winner – Sophie Anderson

Sophie Anderson, “The Girl Who Speaks Bear” (Usborne)
The winner of the Children & Young People Award is Sophie Anderson with her lyrical folk tale of magic, belonging, and choosing your own family, The Girl Who Speaks Bear (Usborne). This novel follows Yanka, who was found abandoned by a bear cave as a baby, and has always wondered where she is from. When she must flee her house looking for these answers, a journey far beyond anything she ever imagined begins, from icy rivers to smouldering mountains, meeting an ever-growing herd of extraordinary friends along the way.
The Children & Young People category is new for 2020, to encourage a new generation of creative readers and writers, help raise the profile of Wales and its talented authors, and establish that literature for children is on a par with that which is intended for adult readership.
The Wales Arts Review People’s Choice Prize was awarded to Sophie Anderson, who captured the imagination of the reading public with The Girl Who Speaks Bear. Sophie receives a limited-edition signed and framed print of Pete Fowler’s Weird and Wonderful Wales mural on Cardiff Central Station’s Water Tower.