A 10-year-old from Chester has won a national Young Writers’ Award.
Grace Alem Jones, from Boughton Heath Academy , fought off tough competition from children all over the region with her story Detective Wilkinson.
The competition was organised by tuition provider Explore Learning which has a centre inside Sainsbury’s store in Chester .
This year’s theme was The Mash-up, where children were challenged to write a 500 word story where two genres collide.
Judged by Lauren Child, best-selling author of the Ruby Redfort, Charlie & Lola and Clarice Bean series of books, children from all over the UK put their writing skills to the test in an effort to be crowned the nation’s best young writer and win the prize of a trophy, a family trip to Disneyland Paris and £500 worth of books for their school.
The national 2016 winner was 11-year-old, Gracie Harding, from Winchester who triumphed with her story Happy Never After.
Head of education at Explore Learning Carey Ann Dodah said: “We were once again blown away with both the quality and quantity of entries for the National Young Writers’ Awards. The competition grows and grows and we’re thrilled it has inspired so many children to get writing!
“This year’s ‘mash-up’ theme brought out some brilliantly creative entries, it was a pleasure to read through some of them, many congratulations to Grace!”
Judge, Lauren Child said: “As I read the entries, what I could see in them was the voices and the personalities of the people who’d written them and that’s really, really important. It’s very hard to write such a short story with a beginning, middle and end without losing the thread.”
