New York, NY — January 29, 2015 – Every Child a Reader (ECAR) and the Children’s Book Council (CBC) have announced the addition of three new categories in the 8th annual Children’s Choice Book Awards, the only national book awards program where the winning titles are selected by kids and teens. In 2015, the three new award categories will be Children’s Choice Debut Author, Teen Choice Debut Author and Children’s Choice Illustrator Award. The five finalists for each of these awards will be determined by selection committees comprised of librarians, educators, booksellers, and children’s literature experts appointed by Every Child a Reader; winners will be determined by votes from kids and teens. These three new awards are in addition to the existing Kindergarten to Second Grade Book of the Year, Third to Fourth Grade Book of the Year, Fifth to Sixth Grade Book of the Year, and Teen Book of the Year awards, and will replace the former Author of the Year & Illustrator of the Year awards, in which finalists were determined by national bestseller lists. The finalists for the K-2, 3-4, and 5-6 Book of the Year categories will be selected by kids through the Children’s Choices Program, a joint project of the International Reading Association (IRA) and the CBC in which 12,500+ children from different regions of the United States read newly-published children’s and young adult trade books and vote for the ones they like best. Teen Book of the Year finalists will again be chosen by thousands of teens via voting conducted by Teenreads.com, open now through Monday, February 2 here. Kids and teens will determine the winners in all 8 categories of the Children’s Choice Book Awards by voting online at ccbookawards.com from Tuesday, March 17, 2015 through Sunday, May 3, 2015. In 2014, over 1,200,000 votes were cast online by young readers. Winners will be announced during the 96th annual Children’s Book Week (May 4-10, 2015). “We are excited to create the opportunity for emerging talent to be recognized in the Children’s Choice Book Awards for the first time this year, and to bring a variety of voices in the field of children’s literature to the table in the finalist selection process for our three new categories,” said Nicole Deming, Communications Director of the CBC and ECAR. “As always, kids and teens will decide who wins -- this program gives them the unique opportunity to voice their opinions about the books being written for them on a national scale.”