Barnes & Noble booksellers around the country have voted to name Charlie Mackesy’s illustrated fable The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Barnes & Noble’s 2019 Book of the Year.
Written and illustrated by Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is a story in drawings about a boy on a journey who encounters three animals that provide a series of life lessons to him.
The book was published in October by HarperOne and was chosen from a field of eight “brilliant and diverse titles,” according to B&N CEO James Daunt. The creation of the Book of the Year program is one of Daunt's most visible new initiatives since taking over as B&N CEO in September. He hopes the program will be part of a larger effort the will let B&N create unexpected hits.
The other titles that were nominated for the prize were:
The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood
The Food of Sichuan, by Fuchsia Dunlop
Mythos, by Stephen Fry
The Silent Patient, by Alex Michaelides
Olive, Again, by Elizabeth Strout
No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, by Greta Thunberg
The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
Daunt added that “This is the book more than any other that has caught the magpie eye of our booksellers. Word of mouth among our booksellers has made this inspirational book the surprise bestseller of the year. We are very proud to name it now our 2019 Barnes & Noble Book of the Year.”
