Anthony Browne stood in front of a hushed and excited audience of school children, at Sheffield City Hall, to announce the winner of the 2009 Sheffield Children's Book Awards. As usual the Hall was packed to the rafters with children from all over the city that had taken part in the awards this year.
Anthony worked his way through the many different awards including (deep breath) longer and shorter novels, picture books (Anthony's favourite 
), community library award, best series and of course the baby book. Whilst winning one of the categories is brilliant, every author secretly wants to win the biggie. This year the hour went to Steve Smallman & Joelle Dreidemy for Smelly Peter - The Great Pea Eater.
Category winners were as follow:-
Longer Novels - Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd
Shorter Novels - The Mum Shop by Ceci Jenkinson
Picture Books - Smelly Peter - The Great Pea Eater
Community Library Award - How to get Famous by Pete Johnson
Book from a Series - Ghost Hunter by Michelle Paver
Loads of authors attended the ceremony and were available afterwards to sign books for hundreds of excited children. The queues snaked around the City Hall. One girl was spotted with Michelle Paver's entire collection (obviously a fan), which Michelle signed without complaint and took time out to talk to the fan.
In the afternoon secondary aged children were treated to a great talk by Anthony McGowan about his book 'The Knife that Killed me'. Hiding his disappointment well, Anthony told the students about what led him to write the book and where he got his inspiration from.
