Rowling Lands Another British Book Award

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SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 4/16/2008 2:00:00 PM

Even though J. K. Rowling has finished her final "Harry Potter" (Scholastic) book, the awards keep coming in. The famed author this week took home a Book People Outstanding Achievement Award at the Galaxy British Book Awards.

The awards are often described as Britain's publishers' answer to the Oscars and are known in local parlance as "the Nibbies" because of their nib-shaped trophies. Voters include the public and the Academy of the British Book Industry.

This marks Rowling’s fifth Nibbie. Ten years ago, she received her first for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Rowling then went on to collect another three over the intervening years. This year’s award, coming as the Potter saga closes, “crowns a glittering decade, and provides a neat symmetry to an extraordinary period in British publishing,” says the British Book Awards Web site.

Rowling, who was in New York this week testifying in federal court for her copyright lawsuit against RDR Books, was feted by no less than Prime Minister Gordon Brown. "She has been incredibly generous with her time and her money supporting some of the U.K.'s most deserving charities, but always in a quiet way," Brown said.

Rowlings' own response to her award was that she was glad "I haven't been pensioned off just yet with a Lifetime Achievement Award."