Friends and Heroes, the animated action-adventure TV series for children, today received the Christian Broadcasting Council's Gold Award as the Best Youth/Children's Programme 2007.

First shown in March on CBBC, the first series is currently showing on BBC2 and is now available on seven high-quality DVDs. There are two more series to follow, which will be ready in 2008 and 2009 respectively.

The series aim to bring Bible stories from the Old and New Testaments to a new generation of children who may never have heard them before.

They have been produced with Rev Stephen Gaukroger, author of over twenty books on biblical and leadership themes and Senior Minister at Gold Hill Baptist Church, as Senior Biblical advisor.

"We are delighted to win this prestigious award," said Alison and David Dorricott, Executive Producers, "and viewer feedback from the series has been excellent too.

"Friends and Heroes was originally created to appeal to children aged six to 10 years but we know of children aged just four who love it and their grandparents enjoy it too.

"One child e-mailed recently saying 'I love it sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much.' and this child was watching it at school."

The series has also been praised by judges and professional reviewers.

The judges for this Gold Award described it as 'Engaging and high quality story-telling for children'. Other reviewers said recently that the DVD "passed the test of a five-year-old with flying colours".

One magazine gave Friends and Heroes a 5 star review saying it was a "great way to introduce children to the adventure stories of the Bible".

Created by a highly experienced UK production team and featuring state-of-the-art 2D and 3D animation, Friends and Heroes tells the story of two first-century young people, Macky and Portia, who meet when they live in Roman occupied Alexandria. Their idealism and friendship leads them across the ancient world, to the besieged city of Jerusalem and finally, at the end of Series 3, to the very heart of the Empire - Rome.

Scheduled for final completion in spring 2009, another 26 Episodes of Friends and Heroes now being produced in High Definition TV format as part of Series 2 and 3.

Macky and Portia end Series 1 by leaving Alexandria bound for Jerusalem, where they continue their adventures amongst more new friends. In Series 3 they travel to Rome and enter the world of the dangerous Circus Maximus. Series 2 and 3 will be available on DVD during 2008/9.

Children can learn more about the series, the history of the period and interact with the characters at www.friendsandheroes.tv where there is entertainment, information and just plain fun.

There are also synopses of all the episodes, links to Bible stories, quizzes, puzzles and games, plus interactive galleries where kids can post their own creations, and downloads of stills from the series and the main characters.