Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s The Wolves in the Walls is not only on the shortlist for the Kate Greenaway Medal (see the full Greenaway and Carnegie Medal shortlists in today’s Teacher magazine), but winner of the English Association’s award for the top key stage 2 fiction picture book of 2003.

The four-to-11 Picture Book awards, to be presented next week, are for books that are “original, visually alive and well written”. The judges said: “Wolves in the Wall is not a cosy book - it deals with childhood fears and how to cope with them - but it is most original, with powerful pictures and interesting use of sizes, shapes and styles of print. There is much for older primary children to discuss here.” Publisher Bloomsbury has another book from this great team - The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish - coming in October.

The key stage 2 non-fiction award has gone to “a most inviting reference text”: The Usborne Introduction to Art by Rosie Dickins with Mari Griffith (in association with The National Gallery, London). Another Bloomsbury picture book, Bill in a China Shop by Katie Weaver, illustrated by Tim Raglin, picked up the key stage 1 fiction award, while the non-fiction award went to Woolly Jumper: the story of wool by Meredith Hooper, illustrated by Katharine McEwen, published by Walker Books.

Meanwhile, under-14s in school-based science clubs are choosing the winner of the Aventis Junior Prize for the books that best enthuse their age group about science. The adult panel includes Mark Evans, vet and TV presenter on BBC and Discovery, children’s novelist Jacqueline Wilson and Abdul-Hayee Murshad, head of Hermitage primary in the London borough of Tower Hamlets.

The shortlisted books are: The Beginning: voyages through time by Peter Ackroyd (Dorling Kindersley); Really Rotten Experiments by Nick Arnold and Tony de Saulles (Scholastic Children’s Books); Riotous Robots by Mike Goldsmith (Scholastic Children’s Books); Start Science: forces and motion by Sally Hewitt (Chrysalis Children’s Books); Tell Me: who lives in space? by Clare Oliver (Chrysalis Children’s Books), and Survivors Science: in the rainforest by Peter Riley (Hodder Wayland). The winning author will receive pound;10,000 while pound;1,000 will be awarded to each of the shortlisted authors.