Extract from the Stan Lee Excelsior Award Website

The overall goal of this scheme is to encourage reading for pleasure amongst children and teenagers. However, its secondary target is to raise the profile of graphic novels and manga amongst school librarians and teachers. This storytelling medium has been a largely underused resource within education for many years. The Excelsior Award attempts to highlight some of the amazing books that are published every year, just crying out to be put in our school libraries!

The basic premise is that all the participating secondary schools will gather together a group of student readers who will use a special and straightforward 'Rating Form' to rate and review each of the eight books on the shortlist (according to Story, Artwork, Characters and Dialogue) over a 9-10 week period. This process will result in the shortlist being narrowed down to a 1st, 2nd and 3rd with the winning titles being announced at a special awards ceremony in late June or early July.  The first ever awards ceremony was held at Ecclesfield School, Sheffield on 1st July 2011