The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time by Mark Haddon won the Whitbread "best novel" gong.

It's about a 15-year-old with a form of autism who turns detective. The author has already written 18 kids' books.

There was also a "children's book" category in the awards, which was won by David Almond's The Fire-Eaters - a tale set in Newcastle in the 1960s.

It saw off competition from three other short-listed books: Catherine Fisher's The Oracle; Michael Morpurgo's Private Peaceful and Jeanne Willis' Naked Without A Hat.

David has now received the award twice. He first won for Skellig in 1998.

Mark and David each received £5,000 for scooping their awards.