Luckily Daughter insisted we buy the Guardian yesterday as we boarded our plane, which means I can now let you know the longlist for the Guardian children’s fiction prize, rather than having to concentrate on Daughter’s artistic rearranging of sickbag into flower, while bored on the flight. I think it may have been her way of sorting out Mother’s Day, which is only my second one this year.
Anthony McGowan, The Knife That Killed Me
Frank Cottrell Boyce, Cosmic
Jenny Downham, Before I Die
Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go
Rhiannon Lassiter, Bad Blood
Siobhan Dowd, Bog Child
Tanya Landman, The Goldsmith’s Daughter
Good list, but unfortunately one where I have yet again failed to read enough of the books to know what’s what. I’ll go home and catch up as best I can. It’s definitely a list of knives and death, which when you think about it is not very “child friendly”. As for my famous predictions, I can only see one outcome, and that’s for Bog Child to win. The shortlist will feature books 3, 4, 6 and 7.
2 responses so far ↓
meg rosoff // May 27, 2008 at 21:31 |
Oh lord, is that the LONGLIST? I thought it was the shortlist. I agree with you that it has to be Bog Child. And looking at the judges (Mal Peet, Mary Hoffman and Jenny Valentine) I’m even more in agreement. Like everyone else, I just wish Siobhan were around to enjoy her much deserved success. She won Irish Book of the Year last week with Bog Child, and it was richly deserved.
A quick word of support for Anthony McGowan, though, whose The Knife That Killed Me is about as timely a book as was ever written. I don’t know about the Patrick Ness, but I think McGowan’s should be required reading in secondary schools, for reasons of safety and sanity, at the very least.
bookwitch // May 28, 2008 at 6:57 |
Yes, I’ve looked several times, including a minute ago, and it says LONGLIST. Doesn’t mention date for shortlist, so maybe they are skipping that? But thinking about what Mary Hoffman was saying a while back, this ought to be the shortlist. Hmm.
Anthony’s book is lying at home waiting for a free moment.