Four books. Only four, yet all have been on the awards radar and some have received great honours indeed. We can but speculate what else the late Siobhan Dowd might have written had her life been longer. But we can celebrate these four marvellous books and the richness that her writing has brought to young adult literature. The first Carnegie Medal to be awarded posthumously was for this week’s featured title, Bog Child (2007), which was finished three months before Siobhan Dowd’s death.
After ten years of Discworld, Terry Pratchett (Sir Terence Pratchett) has created a very differentworld in Nation (2008). Set in n a parallel universe rather like our 19th century South Pacific this is a multi-faceted disaster-survival / coming-of-age story that explores many themes. There is no book trailer as such for this title, so here is Terry Pratchett talking about how Nation came to be (the US cover is featured):
Terry Pratchett speaks in The Times about living with Alzheimer’s Disease (25/1/2009)
And in The Independent: Nation – the one that’s just come out – that’s a book for kids. And people will say: ‘Well it covers very adult subjects …’ Yeah, that’s why it’s a book for kids. Because you want kids to grow up to be adults, not just bigger kids.”
The author describes it as ‘Gladiator meets Project Runway’: the dystopian reality-TV spectacle that is the premise of Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games, along with its sequel Catching Fire. Book Three, The Victors, is due to be published towards the end of 2010.
Australian and UK cover. Copyright rests with the publisher, Scholastic
Dystopia and Science Fiction : Blade Runner, Brazil and Beyond (or, Who’s Dystopia Is It?) (or, Dystopia is in the Eyes of the (frightened) Beholder). Notes from the Digital Cultures Project (University of California, Santa Barbara) with a definition, comments on the cultural and political sources of dystopian fiction and what we can learn from reading it.
With the arrival in cinemas this month of Li Cunxin’s story of peasant to international ballet star, TrailerTuesday this week focuses on Mao’s Last Dancer – the books, the picture book and the film.
Where the Streets had a Name (Randel Abdel-Fattah)
Jarvis 24 (David Metzenthen)
Worldshaker (Richard Harland)
Everything Beautiful (Simmone Howell)
And vying for the Silver Inky are:
Exposure (Mal Peet)
Skim (Mariko and Jillian Tamaki)
Paper Towns (John Green)
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie)
The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)
If you would like to recall the longlist that these ten titles survived, we blogged it here.
The only rules: Voters must be aged under 20 and they can only vote once. But they can live anywhere in the world. Don’t forget the shelftalkers to get your students started.
Looking forward to the next round of the twitter wars between the survivor @realjohngreen and the vanquished @maureenjohnson although John just might accept victory gracefully.
Many Australian readers first met Meg Rosoff in person at the 2007 Reading Matters Conference, where her self-deprecating wit was very much in tune with the our own sense of humour. How I Live Now was her first novel and although she was a latecomer to YA writing, each of her subsequent novels are also gems, attested by the number of awards they have collectively garnered. For a debut novel to win or be shortlisted as many awards as it has is remarkable. See the list at the end of this post.
The book trailer featured was a winner of the 2006 Teen Book Video Award hosted by Expanded Books. The world is hungry for YA book trailers. Why not ask your students to try their hand and share the results? Here are some tips.
With Tales from Outer Suburbia, Shaun Tan has proven what we have long suspected: that his talent is not confined to illustration. He is as adept with words as he is with images.
Shaun Tan has developed an international reputation as an outstanding and original illustrator. He was born in Fremantle in 1974 and currently lives and works in Melbourne. As a child Shaun enjoyed reading; writing and illustrating poems and stories; and spent a lot of time drawing dinosaurs, robots and space ships. He participated in a special art program at secondary school but since then he has largely taught himself the art of book illustration. At the University of WA he completed an honours degree in English literature and art history, theory and criticism.
In 1992 Shaun won the International Illustrators of the Future Contest, the first Australian to achieve this award. He has been illustrating young adult fiction and picture books since 1996.
Since winning the 2002 NSW Premier’s Prize for Children’s Books with The Red Tree Shaun Tan has been featured on the 7:30 Report on the ABC and in the Weekend Australian Magazine (June 22-23, 2002), rare publicity for a children’s illustrator or author. From CMIS Author page.
The title Tales from Outer Suburbia appears to be a homage to a much-loved Western Australian collection of short stories, Tom Hungerford’s Stories from Suburban Road.Certainly many of the images in the book are familiar to those who know Perth’s suburbs.
HSC Online – Shaun Tan reveals how he became an illustrator, describes his process and influences and reflects on the distinction between commercial and fine art.
The Viewer, written by Gary Crew, 1997 – Winner, Crichton Award, 1998; Notable Book, CBCA Picture Book of the Year, 1998
The Rabbits, written by John Marsden, 1998 – Aurealis Conveners’ Award for Excellence, 1999; Winner, CBCA Picture Book of the Year, 1999; Spectrum Gold Award for Book Illustration, 1999
Memorial, written by Gary Crew, 1999; Honour Book, CBCA Picture Book of the Year, 2000
Picture Books written and illustrated by Shaun Tan
The Lost Thing, 1999 – Honour Book, CBCA Picture Book of the Year, 2000; Shortlisted, Young Adult, WA Premier’s Book Awards, 1999
The Red Tree, 2001 – Winner, Patricia Wrightson Award, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards; Honour Book, CBCA Picture Book of the Year, 2002; Shortlisted, Children’s Books, WA Premier’s Book Awards, 2001
The Arrival, 2006 – multiple awards including Winner, Golden Aurealis Award for Best Short Story, 2006; Winner, Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Short Story, 2006
The Lost Thing is being adapted as an animated short film by Passion Pictures (UK).
Sydney band Lo-Tel was inspired by the artwork from The Lost Thing to record an album of the same name, incorporating the art into the cover design.
The Lost Thing has also been adapted as a play by the Jigsaw Theatre Company, in Canberra as the main event for the National Gallery of Australia’s Children Festival in 2004. It also inspired the theme for Chookahs! Kids Festival in Melbourne in 2006, where it was performed, and during the festival children participated in many different activities based on concepts from the book.
The Arrival was adapted by WA’s Spare Parts Puppet Theatre in July 2006 (before publication of the book) , using digital animation, puppetry and acting.
Not so much an adaptation as a collaboration, the book of the exhibition Odditoreum at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.
Melina Marchetta is not afraid to experiment in her writing. After the runaway success of Looking for Alibrandi (1992), she could easily have sat back and become something of a specialist in the first-generation migrant story. It was a long wait for Saving Francesca (2006) but it was apparent that Melina’s storytelling was heading in a different direction. This title too picked up a string of awards. On the Jellicoe Road (also 2006), a more complex narrative, achieved the highest honour in YA Literature when it was awarded the 2008 Michael L. Printz award. And now she has turned her hand to fantasy. Finnikin of the Rock (2008) has received wide acclaim here in Australia, and no doubt will also do so in the US when it is published there in 2010. Here she is talking about the writing of the novel:
Initially published in Australia as an adult novel but in the US as a YA title, Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief has since been translated into many languages and embraced by readers around the world. It has mentioned in the same context as Diary of a Young Girl, with which it would make a stimulating paired text.
Another Book trailer (winner of the 2006 Teen Book Video Award)
Hour-long radio interview (2006) on American University Radio. Markus reads from the beginning of the book and touches on the nature of YA literature in response to a listener question. (Audio file).
The blogosphere has embraced Nonfiction Monday and Poetry Friday, so let’s trial an alliterative celebration: Trailer Tuesday.
Given the interest in literature promotion through trailers, each week we’ll feature a trailer of a recommended book and add some supporting material. Suggestions are always welcome.
Trailer Tuesday starts with Kristin Cashore’s first novel, Graceling – a book that has found universal praise and a number of coveted awards.
The Fiction Focus Blog is published by Curriculum Materials Information Services (CMIS), Department of Education and Training, Western Australia. It is designed to provide news about current events, resources and research to assist teachers and teacher librarians engage teenagers with books and reading.
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authors, book trailers, interviews, literature promotion, teaching ideas | Tagged: LiteraturePromotion, TrailerTuesday | 
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Posted by judij
Here they are, the final ten titles – five Australian, five not.
The blogosphere has embraced 
