Muswell Hill's famous Children's Bookshop was among six shops nationwide to be selected as a "champion" for a new literary prize.

The Fortis Green Road shop, established in 1974 has been a Bookshop Champion for the new Jhalak Children’s & Young Adult Prize.

This is an offshoot from the Jhalak Prize, which was founded in 2017 to honour books by writers of colour.

The six chosen bookshops were each assigned one of the prize's finalists to spotlight - so the Children's Bookshop has held events and created special displays around A Fox Called Herbert by Margaret Sturton..

Sanchita Basu De Sarkar, the shop's owner, told this paper: “It was a lovely thing to be doing coming out of lockdown. It is such a nice way to shine a light on them [the author].

“We delivered online interviews with the author and had a display in the bookshop.”

The winner of the prize was Patrice Lawrence with Eight Pieces of Silva.

Sanchita said that reopening the shop after lockdown “has been joyous”, adding: “To buy children’s books you have to interact with them. We have had all our regulars coming back which has been lovely.”