The Children’s Book Award is the only national award for children’s books that is voted for entirely by children. It is owned and coordinated by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups and is highly respected by teachers, parents and librarians. It has brought acclaim and strong sales to past winners such as J.K. Rowling, Patrick Ness, Andy Stanton, Malorie Blackman, Anthony Horowitz and Michael Morpurgo, who has won a record four times. The award has often been the first to recognise the future stars of children’s fiction and has the ability to turn popular authors into bestsellers.
Marv is an ordinary boy who loves spending time with Grandpa and reading comics with his best friend Joe. But everything changes when he discovers a mysterious superhero suit hidden in the attic . . . To his amazement, Marv learns that he is next in a long line of superheroes. Now the time has come to meet his destiny!
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Writing on the inspiration behind the Marv series, Alex Falase-Koya says: “I’ve always wanted to be a superhero. I think that’s what drew me to writing Marv. You can find countless pictures of me as a child dressed up in superhero costumes. Superhero movies are pretty common now, but when I was growing up there weren’t Marvel superhero movies coming out every month – I had to make do with comics and cartoons.
One of those cartoons was called Static Shock. Its superhero was Static, a young black kid with electric powers who spouted cheesy one-loners as he zapped bad guys. Watching that show was the first time I had ever seen a young black boy be the hero of anything I’d ever watched or read.
Quite a few years have passed since I was a kid watching Static Shock, and unfortunately, we still don’t have that many more prominent black superheroes. By writing Marv and detailing his adventures, the laughs, and the struggles, I hope I might give kids today the feeling that I had all those years ago when I watched Static Shock: Marv is a superhero, and he looks like us and that’s really cool. He’s one of us.”
Speaking more about the inspiration behind Marv and the Killer Plants, Alex wrote: “I began writing Marv and the Killer Plants when I moved to a home with a garden. It’s not a very big garden but it’s mine now, so I have to look after it. When I moved, the garden was overgrown with weeds and the earth was filled with rocks, so I thought it would be a cool project to try and fix it.
Was it hard? Yes. I had to spend hours clearing the weeds and rocks, then I had to plant new grass seeds, and after all of that, I had to water the grass twice a day to get it to grow.
However, transforming the garden was one of the best things I’ve done all year. I think that’s because gardening gives you a very visual reminder of something essential. When you work really hard at something, magical things can happen. The world itself can change around you. It may not happen all at once, but it does happen day by day, minute by minute, step by step.”
Marv’s super suit is powered by kindness, and we hope that through reading Marv young readers will see that they can transform the world around them through small acts of kindness as well!
“I hope you enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed writing it!" says Alex.
Who Will Win?? FCBG groups are voting within their group and non-members can vote online via the link at https://fcbg.org.uk/cba-2024/. The deadline for voting is Friday 18th May. The category winners and the author of the best children’s book published in 2024 will be announced at a ceremony in Birmingham on 8th June, attended by representatives from all our local groups.
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