Tickle, Tickle beats off Peek-a-Boo

A NEW LITERARY prize was awarded yesterday to a title that many parents will be itching to get hold of. Tickle, Tickle by Helen Oxenbury won the first Sainsbury's Baby Book Award - a version of the Booker Prize for under-ones. Tickle, Tickle beat five other shortlisted books out of 271 entries to secure the £2,000 prize.

A NEW LITERARY prize was awarded yesterday to a title that many parents will be itching to get hold of. Tickle, Tickle by Helen Oxenbury won the first Sainsbury's Baby Book Award - a version of the Booker Prize for under-ones. Tickle, Tickle beat five other shortlisted books out of 271 entries to secure the £2,000 prize.

"This is a book about babies with squelchy words that children try to imitate," said Wendy Cooling, a children's book consultant who chaired the judging panel, as she announced the winner in London yesterday. "It has lots of humour and a wonderful ending. It encourages children and adults to have fun together."The award is the latest attempt to encourage more authors to write for the very young to help infants become familiar with books.A scheme run by Sainsbury's and the charity Book Trust is already presenting babies with free books at their health check between the ages of seven and nine months.

This year the prize was open to any baby book in print. Next year only books published during the previous 12 months will be eligible.

The other shortlisted titles were: Woof! by Steve Bland,Humpty Dumpty and Other Nursery Rhymes by Lucy Cousins, Find My Cake! by Debbie MacKinnon and Anthea Sieveking, Peek-a-Boo! by Jan Ormerod, and A Bear with a Pear by Nick Sharratt.