Shock ending: how the Costa book awards changed reading – and pitted husband against wife

After 50 years, the prize has been scrapped. How did it change Britain’s literary landscape? And what happened at the awards when Margaret Drabble was seated next to Theresa May?

Malorie Blackman’s ‘dynamic imaginary worlds’ win her the PEN Pinter prize

Noughts & Crosses author praised by judges for ‘challenging issues of injustice in a way that is totally engaging’

Children’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels

A secret day out at the seaside; a celebration of wildflowers; dinosaurs, spies and children with superpowers

Danica Novgorodoff wins Kate Greenaway medal for graphic novel Long Way Down

Judges praise ‘incredible’ version of Jason Reynolds’ novel while Katya Balen wins the Carnegie medal for her ‘evocative’ second book October, October

Murdering the competition: Richard Osman thriller tops UK library loans

Stats from 2020-21 reveal that the Pointless presenter’s The Thursday Murder Club is the biggest hit in UK libraries

Cressida Cowell renews call for £100m investment in primary school libraries

The outgoing children’s laureate has transformed six primary schools through her Life-changing Libraries initiative, but says a ringfenced fund is needed for lasting impact

‘A visceral experience of psychosis’: why one artist spent three years painting bipolar disorder

Creativity has been Matt Ottley’s salvation – but for the artist, composer and children’s book author, it has come at a terrible price

Children’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels

A call to embrace wildness, a guide to shells, a tall tree tale, wishing candles, paper spirits, and a tough apology to make

Sabba Khan and Maisie Chan triumph in Jhalak prizes for writers of colour

Khan wins for her ‘timeless’ debut graphic novel, The Roles We Play, while Chan takes the children’s and YA award for Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths

Tony Ross: ‘I wasn’t at all like Horrid Henry when I was a boy’

The author and illustrator, 83, tells Donna Ferguson about working with Roald Dahl, his three happy marriages, feeling sorry for optimists and being brought up in the Blitz

I Want My Hat Back: Jon Klassen classic goes from shoebox-sized puppet show to the stage

Two friends delighted half a million kids with a tiny production in a cardboard box. Now they’re sizing up the much-loved bulbous bear for the Little Angel theatre

Harry Potter and the missing sketches: JK Rowling’s first drawings of boy wizard

Author’s original drawings for her first Hogwarts novel to appear in print – alongside the return of a mysterious wizard

Bedtime Story by Chloe Hooper review – an extraordinary treasure of hope and grief

The acclaimed author seeks ‘the perfect children’s picture book of death’ to help her sons – and herself – come to terms with their father’s illness

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to give books to refugee children

Singer’s global initiative to offer a book each month to 200 refugee children in London until they turn five

Children’s book on the Queen’s jubilee given cold shoulder by schools in Wales and Scotland

Details released of tale about Queen’s 70-year reign, which is felt to be too ‘Anglocentric’ by devolved governments