The Children of Britain have spoken: the WHSmith Children's book of the year shortlist!

So over in the UK these two people named Richard and Judy, who seem to make their living (in part) by telling the Plain People of Britain what to read, picked their twenty favorite children's books. They then asked the Children of Britain to vote on their favorites, resulting in----

The WHSmith Children's Book of the Year Short List:

Dinosaurs Love Underpants by Claire Freedman, illus Ben Cort (Simon & Schuster)
Horrid Henry Robs the Bank by Francesca Simon (Orion Children's Books)
Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People by Dav Pilkey (Scholastic)
Artemis Fowl & the Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer (Puffin)
The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling (Bloomsbury)
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (Atom)

Well. I guess this is what happens when you let the children vote. I like Captain Underpants just as much as the next mother, but jeez. (I wanted to see what I would have voted for, so I looked on line for the list of the twenty books they started with, but with no luck). It is rather interesting, in an unsurprising way, that the majority are fantasy. I also wonder if this is the first short list ever in the whole history of book awards to include two books with "underpants" in their titles.

But only one of these books will be the final winner! If you are a child (it seems to be open to "all children") here is where you can go to vote for your favorite from this list, by the 27th of March.

I do not know which book I would vote for. Maybe because I've only read two of them.