Check out these incredible winners from our 'Design a character' competition with Dapo Adeola – with one appearing in a book soon

Published on: 14 Chwefror 2022

Last year, our Writer-Illustrator in Residence, Dapo Adeola, launched a competition to design a book character, with a chance to see that character brought to life in a new children's book. You're going to be blown away by the winners...!

When BookTrust's Writer-Illustrator in Residence Dapo Adeola asked primary school children across the UK to design a book character, we didn't realise that we'd end up with over 750 extraordinary entries!

The standard was incredibly high and Dapo had a tough time whittling it down to just a few winners and a few highly commended entries, too. You can now see who caught his eye – and who will end up as an illustration in a future book – below...

Thanks to every child who entered: it was incredibly hard to choose just a few winning entries. Most importantly, keep drawing and creating characters!

The overall winner: Ayesha loves basketball

Imani, age 7, drew this wonderful, vibrant picture of a basketball-loving girl, which swept our judge Dapo away. Ayesha will now become a background character in one of Dapo's forthcoming books!

Five runners-up

The standard of entries was so high and Dapo was so impressed that we ended up with five runners-up, rather than our expected three. All of these brilliant entries will now get a full-colour version of their character, drawn and styled by Dapo Adeola.

Wild Florence by Florence, age 9

Pickle by Francesca, age 10

Thunder Girl by Chaeyoon, Year 3 of Betty Layward Primary School

Wonder Dog by Naomi, age 6

The Flower Warrior by Kenza, Year 5 of Betty Layward Primary School

Just to get a flavour of the quality of entries that came in for Dapo's competition, make sure you also check out our gallery below of highly commended entries. Some of them have quite creative back stories, too!