Onjali Q. Raúf won the overall £5,000 (about $6,590) Waterstones Children's Book Prize for The Boy at the Back of the Class, as well as the younger fiction category. James Daunt, Waterstones managing director, said, "Our booksellers, one after another, have given The Boy at the Back of the Class the highest and rarest of accolades, that it is a future classic. It is, notwithstanding its urgent contemporary relevance, a book that is funny, generous and vivid. It is a joy to read, and we recommend it unreservedly."
Waterstones children's book buyer Florentyna Martin said that Raúf "has distilled what it means to be a genuine and positive person into a story that sparkles with kindness, humor and curiosity. Her characters step out of the book with a warm smile, fully-formed as role models for everyday life, ready to take you on an ambitious adventure which is both fun and exceptionally gripping. Children's books have a raft of difficult topics to convey to young readers, and Raúf embraces this with an approach that is funny, upbeat and overwhelmingly open-hearted. Having recognized this, our booksellers have chosen a winner that showcases the very best of what stories can achieve."
Other category winners were Tomi Adeyemi's Children of Blood and Bone (older fiction) and The Girls by Lauren Ace and Jenny Løvlie (illustrated book).