The Wainwright Prize, the UK’s foremost nature and conservation writing awards, today announced their 2026 shortlists. 

 Jackie Morris dominates this year’s shortlist with three books making the list; The
Summer Puppy created with Cathy Fisher is shortlisted in the Children’s Picture Book
category, while Wild Folk: Tales from the Stones written with Tamsin Abbott, and The
Book of Birds written with Robert Macfarlane have both been shortlisted in the Illustrative
Books category.

 Whilst Jackie Morris has the most shortlistings in 2026, former winner Robert
Macfarlane holds the record for the most Wainwright Prize nominations by any
author since the prize began, with a further two books shortlisted this year marking his
seventh and eighth nominations in the history of the prize. As well as his book with Jackie
Morris, he is also shortlisted for Firefly in the Children’s Picture Book category, illustrated
by Luke Adam Hawker.

 Three previous Nature Writing winners are shortlisted this year including Robert
Macfarlane who won in 2019 with Underland, Dara McAnulty who won in 2020 for his
book Diary of a Young Naturalist, and is this year shortlisted in the Children’s Non-Fiction
category for A Wild Child’s Guide to Nature at Night, illustrated by Barry Falls. The third
former winner on the list is Amy-Jane Beer who won the award in 2023 for her book The
Flow, this year shortlisted in the Children’s Picture Books category for A River Running
Through You, illustrated by Elin Manon.

 Ben Hoare, 2025 winner for the Children’s Wainwright Prize for Non-Fiction, is
shortlisted this year in the same category, this time for his book, Shapes of Nature.

 Almost a third of the shortlisted publishers are independents, with small press Magic
Cat receiving two nominations in the Children’s Prize for Picture Books category, both of
which are written by prior winners, Amy-Jane Beer and Robert Macfarlane.

Prize winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on Thursday 17th September 2026 

The 2026 shortlists (alphabetical by author surname) are:

The 2026 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 
 Ancient: Reviving the Woods That Made Britain, Luke Barley (Profile Books)
 Ghosts of the Farm: Two Women’s Journeys Through Time, Land and Community,
Nicola Chester (Chelsea Green Publishing)
 Craftland, James Fox (The Bodley Head, Vintage)
 Love Is A Toad, Lucy Lapwing (Blink)
 The Genius of Trees, Harriet Rix (The Bodley Head, Vintage)
 Stone Lands, Fiona Robertson, illustrated by Philip Harris (Little, Brown Book Group /
Robinson)
 The Cuckoo’s Lea, Michael J. Warren (Bloomsbury Publishing / Bloomsbury Wildlife)

The 2026 Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing
 The Savage Landscape, Cal Flyn (HarperCollins/William Collins)
 Every Last Fish: What Fish Do for Us and What We Do to Them, Rose George
(Granta)
 Eat the Planet Well: How to Fix Our Toxic Food System — One Meal at a Time,
Dave Goulson (Jonathan Cape, Vintage, PRH)
 Neurodivergent, by Nature, Joe Harkness (Bloomsbury Publishing / Bloomsbury
Wildlife)
 Green Crime: Inside the Minds of the People Destroying the Planet, and How to
Stop Them, Dr Julia Shaw (Canongate Books)
 When the Forest Breathes, Suzanne Simard (Allen Lane, Penguin Press)
 The Return of the Oystercatcher: Saving Birds to Save the Planet, Scott Weidensaul
(Picador)

The 2026 Wainwright Prize for Illustrative Books
 Freshwater: The View from Above and the Life Below by Yann Arthus-Bertrand and
Bill François, (Abrams Books)
 Waterlands: The Coastal Areas of West Sussex and Hampshire Borders by David
Gilbey, illustrated by Molly Martin with original photography by Roo Lewis, (Buan Press)
 Wild Folk: Tales from the Stones by Jackie Morris & Tamsin Abbott, (Chelsea Green
Publishing)
 The Book of Birds by Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane, (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin
Random House UK)
 Funga Obscura: Photo Journeys Among Fungi by Alison Pouliot, (University of
Chicago Press)
 In Botanical Time: The Extraordinary Lifespans of the World’s Oldest Living Plants
by Christopher Woods, (Chelsea Green Publishing)

The 2026 Children’s Wainwright Prize for Fiction shortlist is:
 The Waters and the Wild, Eilish Fisher, illustrated by David Rooney (Penguin Random
House Children’s UK Puffin)
 The Green Kingdom, Cornelia Funke and Tammi Hartung, illustrated by Melissa
Castrillón (DK flip)
 The Lone Husky, Hannah Gold, illustrated by Levi Pinfold (HarperCollins Children’s
Books)
 Swanfall, Sophie Kirtley (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
 The Adventures of Portly the Otter: Untold Tales From the Wind in the Willows,
M.G. Leonard, illustrated by Polly Dunbar (Farshore, HarperCollins)
 The Danger of Small Things, Caryl Lewis (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books)
 Birdlands, Anthony McGowan, illustrated by Keith Robinson (Rock the Boat, Oneworld
Publications)
 Tree Thing, Piers Torday, illustrated by Matthew Taylor Wilson (Quercus Children’s
Books)

The 2026 Children’s Wainwright Prize for Non-Fiction 
 An Anthology of Remarkable Bugs, Jess French (DK Children’s)
 Letters From Wonderland, Josie George, illustrated by Becky Thorns (Faber & Faber)
 Otherlands: An Illustrated Journey Through Earth’s Lost Worlds, Thomas Halliday,
illustrated by Gavin Scott (Penguin Random House Children’s UK Puffin)
 Shapes of Nature, Ben Hoare (DK Children’s)
 Choose Your Own Evolution, Jules Howard, illustrated by Gordy Wright (Nosy Crow)
 A Wild Child’s Guide to Nature at Night, Dara McAnulty, illustrated by Barry Falls
(Macmillan Children’s Books)
 The Cave Explorer, Kate Winter (Penguin Random House Children’s UK Puffin)

The 2026 Children’s Wainwright Prize for Picture Books 

 A River Running Through You, Amy-Jane Beer, illustrated by Elin Manon (Magic Cat
Publishing)
 The Great Bear, Annie Booker (Two Hoots)
 Whale Song, Nicola Davies & Britta Teckentrup (Walker Books)
 The Sun Thief, Alice Hemming & Nicola Slater (Scholastic)
 Firefly, Robert Macfarlane & Luke Adam Hawker (Magic Cat Publishing)
 The Summer Puppy, Jackie Morris & Cathy Fisher (Otter-Barry Books)
 Isla and the Sky, Greg Stobbs (Oxford University Press)
 The Whale That Sings in the Deep, Yuval Zommer (Oxford University Press)