- Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass wins Whitbread Children's Book Award and 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year
- First time in awards history that children's book wins overall category
- Pullman receives £30K in total and is 'absolutely thrilled'

Children's author Philip Pullman has won the prestigious 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year Award for his book The Amber Spyglass, the third and final part of his hugely acclaimed His Dark Materials trilogy, it was announced last night.

It is the first time in the awards history that a children' book has scooped the main prize, worth £25,000, since the Whitbread Book of the Year award was introduced in 1985. The book first beat off stiff competition from a children's shortlist that included publishing sensation Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl, Eva Ibbotson's award-winning Journey to the River Sea and ex-Monty Python actor Terry Jones' The Lady and the Squire, to pick up the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year award worth £5K.

The Amber Spyglass was then automatically in the running for the overall prize, decided by the same nine-member final judging panel, which was chaired by broadcaster and journalist, Jon Snow. The panel also included last year's children's book award winner, Jamila Gavin (Coram Boy), actress Saffron Burrows and writers Esther Freud and Tobias Hill amongst others. Jon Snow described the decision as 'unanimous' and said that Pullman 'was in a league of his own'.

Sir John Banham, Chairman of Whitbread PLC, presented Pullman with his cheque at the glittering ceremony at London's Brewery. Pullman, who said that he was 'flabbergasted' at the result, thanked his wife, 'my first and best reader', as well as his agent, publishers, readers and booksellers. He said that the win finally showed that children's books 'belonged with the best'.

The Amber Spyglass follows the earlier books in the trilogy ' Northern Lights and The Subtle Knife ' collectively entitled His Dark Materials, the title of which was taken from Milton's Paradise Lost. It takes many of its themes from the story of the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man, moving intricately between the universes explored in the previous books and to new universes and worlds not yet visited in the first two volumes.

Pullman famously writes his books in a shed at the bottom of his garden. Born in Norwich in 1946, he spent the early part of his life travelling the world because his father was in the RAF. He subsequently returned to North Wales aged 11, read English at Oxford when he left school and was a teacher for many years before leaving to write full-time. He still lives in Oxford with his wife Jude and two sons.

The author has been critical in the past of the divide that exists between children's and adult books. In a film made exclusively for the Whitbread Book Awards, Pullman criticised writer Jonathan Myerson for an article that allegedly claimed that no children's book could ever say anything interesting about human psychology. 'All children's books, he said, were no good by virtue of being children''s books'All you have to do is say, well, show me one and say why it's bad and I'll show you one and show you why it's good.'

Ends

Notes for Editors:
1. The Whitbread Book Awards, now in their 31sth year, aim to encourage, promote and celebrate the best of contemporary British writing. The Awards, established in 1971, confirm Whitbread - a leading UK leisure company - as one of the longest-running sponsors of British writing.
2. The Whitbread Children's Book Award has been eligible for Whitbread Book of the Year since the award was introduced in 1985, except for a three-year period between 1996 and 1999, when the award was briefly made a prize in its own right, worth £10,000.
> 3. The prize fund for the Whitbread Book Awards now stands at a total of £50,000consisting of Whitbread Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children's Book of the Year Award winners: £5,000 each and the Whitbread Book of the Year winner:£25,000.
4. To be eligible for the 2001 Awards, books must have been published between 1 November 2000 and 31 October 2001, in the UK or Eire.
5. Images can be downloaded from the Internet at www.whitbread-bookawards.co.uk
6. Since its introduction in 1985, the Whitbread Book of the Year has been won five times by a Novel, three times by a First Novel, three times by a Biography and five times by a collection of Poetry.