Chosen by a panel of indie booksellers from a range of new children’s titles, the Book of the Season aims to showcase indie bookshops’ ability to promote and sell children’s books. 

This season’s title is the evocative, Brightstorm, which follows the adventures of twins, Arthur and Maudie, as they travel through the imagined land of Lontown. The twins must embark on the winged ship, the Aurora in order to find the truth about their father’s disappearance and to salvage their family’s reputation. 

Brightstorm is published on 1st March by Scholastic.

For the spring season, around 60 indie bookshops are taking part and will be promoting Brightstorm for a minimum of two weeks from 3rd April. The BA will be supporting the promotion of the CBOTS through social media and promotional materials including posters, stickers, bookmarks and other POS material. Booksellers will also be supporting the Book of the Season on social media.  

Meryl Halls, Head of Membership Services at the BA, commented: “We are thrilled with our very worthy Book of the Season for Spring and look forward to seeing indie booksellers have a great sales showing with the wonderful Brightstorm.  Vashti is a great advocate for indie bookshops, and we know from the success of the first book of the season last autumn what a great impact over 70 independent bookshops can make to the success of a title.” 

Vashti Hardy, author of Brightstorm added: “I’m enormously delighted that Brightstorm has been voted as the Independent Booksellers Book of the Season for Spring 2018! Independent bookshops are the champions of the individual and each has a unique personality, whilst sharing a collective love for books which radiates from each bookseller and every inch of the shelves. Often, they’re a central part of the community and do a fabulous job of supporting authors visiting schools – I can’t wait to visit as many indie booksellers as I can during the season!”

For further details on the CBOTS, please click here.