CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus

Earlier this week our TrailerTuesday featured the winner of the 2004 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, How I Live Now. And a few minutes ago,we blogged the shortlist for the silver Inky Awards, where Mal Peet’s Exposure has made the cut.

In overnight news, this is now the book that has won the 2009 Guardian Award. Nice synchronicity.

The Guardian children’s fiction prize is the only award judged by children’s authors. It was launched in 1967; previous winners include Ted Hughes, Jacqueline Wilson and Philip Pullman. Last year’s prize was taken by Patrick Ness, who judged this year’s award along with Celia Rees and Andy Stanton. Ness called Exposure “a terrific book”. “It’s really exciting and meaty and ambitious,” he said, “terrifically told and put together.”

The Guardian longlist for 2008 contains seven titles, of which Julia Eccleshare says:

Individual choice is a key issue in the seven books longlisted this year. Whether the setting is historical, futuristic or contemporary, these brave and ambitious books portray the journey from child to adult as complicated, hazardous and unpredictable. In doing so they encourage readers to wonder and to explore; above all, to think about the kinds of ’selves’ they may be or like to be.

Longlist:
• Frank Cottrell Boyce Cosmic
• Siobhan Dowd Bog Child
• Jenny Downham Before I Die
• Tanya Landman The Goldsmith’s Daughter
• Rhiannon Lassiter Bad Blood
• Anthony McGowan The Knife that Killed Me
• Patrick Ness The Knife of Never Letting Go

Winners will be announced in September.