Children's book takes Whitbread

The coveted Whitbread Book of the Year award has gone to a children's story for the first time in its history - with the judges comparing it to Milton and Blake.

The Amber Spyglass, a fantasy on a cosmic scale, last night fended off mainstream challenges in the best novel, first novel, poetry book and biography categories to emerge as the judges' overwhelming choice.

Author Philip Pullman, 55, was at the Barbican to accept the Book of the Year award, worth £25,000, as well as the Children's Book of the Year prize of £5,000.

Judges' chairman Jon Snow said final deliberations had been brief: "Within two minutes I said, 'Do I detect that Pullman has won the overall prize?' There was only one person who argued for an alternative book - but he was very clearly persuaded by Pullman."

The Channel 4 newsreader said his fellow judges, including actress Saffron Burrows, Esther Freud, Tobias Hill, heptathlete Denise Lewis and comedian Sanjeev Bhaskar, had been "held spellbound by the enormity of (Pullman's) vision and the intimacy of his observation".

Mr Snow added: "Pullman pays tribute to Blake and Milton, and we believe this to be a book pushing through those reaches."

The Amber Spyglass is the third in a trilogy entitled His Dark Materials but Pullman refused to submit the first two books to the Whitbread judges because at the time children's books were barred from competing for the overall Book of the Year title.

Some commentators harrumphed when The Amber Spyglass made last year's Booker Prize longlist, but last night Pullman hit back at those who doubt children's and adult's books are comparable.

He told last night's audience: "I am absolutely thrilled to win this award because it shows what I have always believed, that children's books belong with the rest; they belong in the general marketplace of books and in the general conversation about books."

He said film projects for the sequence "are being energetically discussed" but added this will not be the last of the books: "This particular story is finished but there are many many other stories we get glimpses of in the trilogy and I would like to revisit them. I can see about two books ahead." He will begin the fourth, The Book Of Dust, by the end of the year.

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