A Day of the Life of a Poo, a Gnu and You is crowned winner of the Blue Peter Award for Book of Facts!

A Day in the Life of a Poo, a Gnu and You, a middle grade title from Buster Books, has won the Blue Peter Award for the Best Book with Facts 2021. This is the second consecutive win for Buster Books, as Rise Up by Amanda Li and Amy Blackwell won the award last year.

The comic-style book is split into three sections; Earth Science, Human Body and Animal Kingdom, and gives young readers the inside story of brains, pimples, farts, porcupines, Japanese knotweed, clouds, clocks, Mars rovers, snowflakes – and lots more. Each element has its own page and is written in the form of a first-person diary, hilariously presented in strip cartoons.

Author, Mike Barfield said on receiving the award: “Winning any award is a huge honour but winning the Blue Peter Book Award is extra special. I adored the programme as a child, and again as a parent, watching it with my own (now grown-up) children. The child in me that still persists to this day does find it rather amusing that a book with ‘Poo’ in its title will now have to be mentioned several times on the show. Gnu-sized thanks to the programme, to BookTrust, my brilliant illustrator Jess Bradley, to publisher Buster Books and my lovely agent Anne Clark. All are a part of winning this prize.”

Illustrator, Jess Bradley said: “As someone who grew up watching Blue Peter, this is the MOST exciting award to win, so a massive thank you to all of the readers who voted for us. I had so much fun drawing everything from poos to gnus, and I’m really happy to know that so many children enjoyed reading about them!”

Managed by BookTrust, the UK’s largest children’s reading charity, the immensely popular Blue Peter Book Awards honour amazing authors, imaginative illustrators and the best books for children, published in the last 12 months. The winning titles were voted for by over 200 children from 12 schools across the UK.