Ex-lawyer and teacher Janeen Hayat won the Best Book for Younger Readers prize for her ‘beautiful’ debut novel Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree, writes Marco Marcelline

A Walthamstow-based author has picked up a Waterstones Children’s Book Prize award for her debut novel, Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree.

Ex-lawyer and teacher Hayat, who grew up in Florida before moving to the UK, won the Best Book for Younger Readers prize.

Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree warmly tells the story of classmates Evie and Maryam’s budding friendship, with flashbacks to their families during the Partition of India.

Uneasily thrown together at the start of a new school term as they start a project together looking into their family trees, the two girls initially think they don’t have much in common – Maryam feels like an outsider, and Evie thinks Maryam is a bit odd.

But when the two girls each find the same mysterious folder containing documents in a secret language that belong to their grandmothers, they discover their ties go back two generations, all the way to India, to partition, and to two best friends who inspired each other more than they ever know.

Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree, Credit: Guppy Publishing Ltd

Waterstones has described the book as a “beautifully told historical family-based exploration of identity, inheritance, difference and friendship”.

The prize, now in its 22nd year, has launched the careers of many children’s book authors and illustrators and is now one of the most valuable and prestigious children’s book awards in the UK.

Last year’s winner, The Café at the Edge of the Woods by Mikey Please, went on to be named Waterstones Children’s Book of the Year in December, finishing the year as Waterstones bestselling picture book.

Other winners at the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2026 were A Language of Dragons by S.F. Williamson which won the Older Readers category and Sleep Tight, Disgusting Blob by Huw Aaron which won the Illustrated Books category and went on to be crowned as overall winner of the 2026 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize.

You can purchase the book for £6.49 here

No news is bad news

Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.

The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less.

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation.

Choose the news. Don’t lose the news.

Monthly direct debit

Annual direct debit

£5 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else, £10 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else and a print copy posted to them each month. £50 annual supporters get a digital copy of each month's paper before anyone else.