About..
OLIVER SYKES MBE BCAa is a popular, multi-award-winning children’s author, poet, facilitator, and producer whose work inspires and empowers young readers across the UK and beyond.
His two most recent publications include Saving Anwen (Collins Big Cat Read On) and Diesel and Me (Collins Little Wandle Fluency Series). His first verse novel, We Are Family: Six Kids and a Super-Dad (Otter-Barry Books) won the Special Recognition Award at the 2025 Children’s Literature Festivals Book Awards, and has been shortlisted for the 2025 CLiPPA Book Award, The Week Junior Book Awards 2025 ‘Children’s Poetry Book of the Year’ and the 2025 Stockport Children’s Book Award. Praised by BookTrust as ‘excellent’ and by Schools Reading List as ‘fantastic,’ it has also been endorsed by top-authors including Roger McGough, Phil Earle, Rashmi Sirdeshpande, Ben Davis, and Dom Conlan.
His debut novella, Alfie’s First Fight, won Best Illustrated Young Reader at the 2023 Children’s Literature Festivals’ Book Awards, with the late-great Alex Wheatle MBE described it as ‘Compelling!’
Beyond writing, Oliver is a passionate workshop leader and performer, regularly bringing his stories and poems to life in schools, theatres and libraries. He is a founding member of Stories Of Care (2015-2024), an award-winning organisation that championed diverse new voices in literature, described by Lemn Sissay OBE as ‘true arts development work: much needed, much appreciated and resulting in vital celebrations of what it is to be young, creative and empowered.’
Together with his partner Gwen, Oliver also co-founded Your Story, a community organisation based in his hometown of Denbigh. Their youth-led story club has opened the doors of reading to children and families who might not otherwise have engaged with their local library – an impact that librarian Meira Jones described as ‘a whole new world of books and stories.’
In November 2024, Oliver became the Patron of Reading at Ysgol y Castell, Rhuddlan.
In March 2025, Oliver was awarded an MBE for Services to Access to the Arts for Underprivileged Young People.
His other published works include Fishing For Rainbows, Alfie and the Thief, Tales of the Weird, the Wild and the Wonderful and Tales of the Bold, the Brave and the Beautiful. He has also written for The Guardian, The Daily Express, Metro, BookTrust, The Federation of Children’s Book Groups, and The Reading Realm.
Oliver lives in Denbigh, North Wales, with his partner Gwen, their baby daughter Ida, and their German-Shepherd, Luna.
ACCOLADES:
- 2025 CLiPPA BOOK AWARDS – SHORTLISTED (WE ARE FAMILY)
- 2025 THE WEEK JUNIOR BOOK AWARDS – SHORTLISTED (WE ARE FAMILY)
- 2025 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE FESTIVALS BOOK AWARDS – WINNER (WE ARE FAMILY)
- 2025 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE FESTIVALS BOOK AWARDS – SHORTLISTED (ALFIE & THE THIEF)
- THE DIVERSE BOOK AWARDS 2025 – LONGLISTED (WE ARE FAMILY)
- 2025 STOCKPORT CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARDS – SHORTLISTED (WE ARE FAMILY)
- 2024 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE FESTIVALS BOOK AWARDS – SHORTLISTED (FISHING FOR RAINBOWS)
- 2023 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE FESTIVALS BOOK AWARDS – WINNER (ALFIE’S FIRST FIGHT)
- 2022 MANCHESTER PEOPLE’S CULTURE AWARD – NOMINEE
- 2022 BRITISH CITIZEN AWARD MEDALLIST
- 2022 LITERACY CHAMPION
