Philip Pullman has won the JM Barrie award, a prize to mark a “lifetime’s achievement in delighting children”.

The annual award is given by the charity Action for Children’s Arts, which campaigns for all children to have access to the arts, and celebrates work that will stand the test of time. ACA chair Vicky Ireland said Pullman was chosen by the charity’s trustees for his outstanding talent as a storyteller who appeals to all ages, especially to the young.

“We consider him a magical, magnificent spinner of yarns, who for many years has pulled his readers and audiences in by the power of his imagination to explore realms of wonder and adventure,” she said. “Children need help to think and feel, to grow strong in their convictions, to empathise and to love. Stories can do this, and Philip Pullman’s stories go a great way in inspiring his readers to test their emotions and develop their imaginations in the most marvellous way possible. What better way to recognise and celebrate this lovely man’s talent, than with a lifetime accolade?”

Pullman said he couldn’t be more proud and pleased to win the award, sending “an uncountable number of thanks to my lovely readers”. According to the Bookseller, the author of the His Dark Materials fantasy sequence has sold 6.9m books in the UK. The Secret Commonwealth, the second volume in his follow-up trilogy The Book of Dust, will appear in October. The novel, which continues the adventures of his heroine Lyra, is already one of Amazon’s top sellers, more than six months before its release.

The author is a patron of ACA and said the charity was a very good way of seeing that children got “the best of everything; the best opportunities, the best education, the best food, the best stories and poems, the best music, the best theatre”.

Previous winners of the JM Barrie award include Michael Morpurgo, Lynne Reid Banks, Jacqueline Wilson, Judith Kerr and Dick King-Smith.