Helen Rutter‘s brilliant book The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh has been nominated for the Laugh Out Loud Book Awards.
Known as The Lollies, the prize is a set of awards created by Scholastic UK that celebrate the funniest children’s books. They were created in response to the end of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2015 and have been expanded this year, adding additional categories following the news that the Blue Peter Book Awards have also ended.
The shortlists were selected by a panel of judges including Lollies ambassador Michael Rosen, illustrator Anita Mangan, authors Ella McLeod and Steven Butler, assistant headteacher Rani Tiwana and Book Club product manager Su Inglis.
The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh follows Billy Plimpton, an eleven-year-old boy with a dream. He wants to be a stand-up comedian when he grows up: delivering pinpoint punch lines and having audiences hang on his every hilarious word. A tough career for anyone, but surely impossible for Billy, who has a stammer. How will he find his voice, if his voice won’t let him speak? The idea for this story came from Helen Rutter’s son, who has a stammer: she wanted to write a book that he would love to read, starring a child like him.
If you’ve not yet had the chance to read The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh you can pick up your copy here.
