David Maybury | Blog

Just flicking through the blogs and spotted over on Achockablog:

STOP PRESS: Waterstones Winner

Michelle Harrison is the winner of 2009 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize.

There’s a big blurb about the awards over at waterstones.com including a video with Kate Philips, from Waterstones in Oxford (below). The Guardian covers the story too - click for more.

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I heard Sebastian Barry on the radio this morning. Must have been for some award or something… The Guardian has plenty more about the winners - most importantly Michelle Magorian’s Just Henry won the children’s lit award. (Congratulations Michelle!!) Roll on the overall award!

I haven’t read Just Henry yet but some clever interweb guru has put an extract online. Smart. And you should probably read the Bookwitch’s review too. Smarter.

Not too long ago I let slip that Patrick Ness was running a competition on through the Guardian. He set the task of writing a story that began:

A bell rang and I opened my eyes. I thought, ‘Oh, no, not him, anyone but him’.

and ended with:

Then she let go of my hand, and I fell and kept falling.

The competition was open to anyone under 16 and living in the UK  (that exludes me anyway…) but some smart who-be-wots-its did enter and managed to win a prize or two.

16 year old Lauren Stokeld managed to win the  overall prize (a whopping £50 book ­token, a signed copy of Ness’ The Knife of Never Letting Go and a set of 10 children’s ­fiction books from Walker) The winning story is up over on The Comic page along with the two runner-up stories, by Megan Humphrey and Callum Puttock. Congrats!

Go on, have a read.

The winners of CBI’s Design a Cover Competition have been announced. Entrants were asked to design a cover for a reprint of Linda Moller’s book, The Great Pig Escape. First prize winner, Holly Crowley, will see her cover design appear on the front page of the book early next year.

Congratulations to Holly and all of the runners-up who all will see their pictures in the new edition.

Over on the Scottish Book Trust site news has broken of the winners of the Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children’s Books. The awards are voted on by kids in schools and libraries across Scotland. And the winners are, interestingly:

Billy Monster’s Daymare by Alan Durant and Ross Collins

Dark Isle by D A Nelson

Bunker 10 by J.A. Henderso

Congratulations to all three! More on the Scottish Book Trust and the Guardian.

There can’t be too many awards that Patrick Ness hasn’t won yet. The man in question was announced as the 2008 Booktrust Teenage Prize winner in London yesterday.

His acceptance speech on his blog is pretty astonished:

Well, holy crap!
- Patrick Ness, 2008

The Observer published the winners - and runners-up - for the Observer/Cape Graphic Short Story Prize. The Observer site has a whole heap of galleries so there’s plenty to ogle

Julian Hanshaw‘s winning short - Sand Dunes and Sonic Booms.

Emily Haworth-Booth’s short - What do married people talk about?

Isabel Greenberg’s short - Cheer up love, it’s only a credit crunch.

Some really great stuff - worth reading. Definitely.

Sally Nicholls appears in this morning’s Irish Times talking to Fiona McCann and celebrating her huge Glen Dimplex win. My favourite part of the interview:

When you’re 10, you think: ‘I’m going to be an astronaut when I grow up.’ And when you get to 25, you realise that actually to be an astronaut isn’t open to you any more. I just feel so grateful that when I was 10 I wanted to be writer. That was my ‘being an astronaut’, and I get to do it, and I get to do it all day, and I get to write stories, and people like them, and I just find that really, really amazing.

And elsewhere in the world yesterday - Michael Rosen announced the winners of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize - judged by Sophie Dahl, funnyman Dara O’Briain, Kaye Umansky and somewhat genius with a crayon Chris Riddell.

The winners for the inaugural funny prize were Ursula Jones and Russell Ayto for The Witch’s Children Go to School and Andy Stanton and David Tazzyman for Mr Gum and the Dancing Bear.

The longlists for the 2009 Carnegie and Kate Greenaway awards have been announced - the lists are pretty long, thus the name, but plenty of deserving books up for awards. There have been so many great books out this year - the longlists are certainly proof of that!

The shortlist won’t be announced until 24 April 2009 - loads of time to get reading! No excuse.

Not sure if I posted this before - but it’s worth a second listen. Emily Gravett’s chat with Jon Dennis after winning the Kate Greenaway award earlier this year.

It’s four minutes well spent. Enjoy.

Robert Muchamore’s ninth book from his CHERUB series, Sleepwalker, has won an Independent Booksellers award.

The CHERUB books are a fast paced action series based around a group called CHERUB - run by British Security Service - that adopt and train orphaned children as secret operatives. So if being an adult spy wasn’t bad enough, Muchamore has thrown teenage uncertainties, ego and a few huge multi-national villanous corporations into the mix for good measure. Divine Madness is still my favourite in the series but I think I’ll give Sleepwalker another try… More about the award over at the guardian.co.uk

Plenty of things happening in the real world these days - and I managed to detach myself from the keyboard and tag along to a few…

First was the Irish Pen event last Thursday on Writing for Children. I had a lovely chat with Sarah Webb and Carbags, as well as a quiet drink with Steve Simpson, of Scamp.ie fame, and Brian Gallagher, a very brief hello/goodbye with Oisín McGann and PJ Nolan, a chin wag with the Hungry Caterpillar and the beautiful letter writer Karl O’Neill. Sarah has a comprehensive review of the night - including stats and notes on what everyone said. And she called me lovely. Yup, I’m lovely. (Not quite on the cute-boy list yet but I’m working up to that)

Saturday saw the inaugural (and amazing) Irish Web Awards. And what a night that was. Lovely to meet the regular gang of cohorts (you all know who you are) and to see some others I don’t get to talk to so regularly - including - Sineads, Jen, Deb, Sabrina, Redmum, Martha, Lexi, Suzy, John, Paula, Ciara, Peter, Niall, Aoife, Keith, Ken, Ross, Alan and hello to Jen - who I sadly didn’t see.

Damien surpassed any and all expectations and put together an amazing night and the Grand Boo-Bah did a stand-up job (see what I did there?) on the mic. Congrats to everyone who won (or was nominated - winning isn’t everything you know). There are plenty of pics out there - so far this has been my favourite:

I’ve never heard of Jean-Marie Gustave le Clezio. Neither have quite a few people I’ve spoken to. But I’m looking forward to reading him in the future.

I’ve met one Nobel laureate a few times and he is brilliant and humble. But Patrick Ness‘ story about meeting Dorris Lessing just couldn’t be ignored…

I met Doris Lessing once at the HarperCollins Summer Party. She was lovely and tiny and a wee bit hobbit-like and I was so afraid of saying something stupid, I didn’t say anything at all.

Later (and this is true) I was talking to some other people I’d just met and they were asking me how I was enjoying my very first publishing party (which it was). I, nervous and braying (as I often get when I’m nervous), said, “Well, I met Doris Lessing.” They said, “How was that?”. I then decided, in a moment of idiotic madness, to make the following, ahem, joke: “She hit on me. It was awkward for everyone.”

After the unsurprising stony silence this received, I then brayed, “So, what do you do?” And they answered, with impeccable timing, “We’re Doris Lessing’s agents.”

The Queen of Teen winner was announced last night at what, I’m told, was an ‘ultra-glamorous and very pink awards ceremony’. The winner (who is the only one of the shortlist I have read, honest) was Louise Rennison.

Congrats to Louise and to all of the shortlist (with a mention for the two special commendations Malorie Blackman and Stephanie Meyer) Pics, speeches and more will be up on the Queen of Teen site soon - head on over and have a peek.

Update: The Bookwitch has an altogether far-too-girly-for-me (that’s the point though really) review of the awards - with pics of tiaras galore.

The Booktrust Early Year Awards live up to their name - they were announced last night, two months earlier than the Booktrust Teenage Prize.

Baby Book Award went for Is This My Nose? illus. Georgie Birkett

The Pre-School Award was awarded to the brilliant Jeanne Willie and Gwen Millward for The Bog Baby.

And the Best Emerging Illustrator for this year was Tim Hopgood with Here Comes Frankie!

All three category winners receive a cheque for £2,000 and a glass trophy. What a night for awards?! First Patrick Ness now the Booktrust. Congratulations to all three winners! You can head over to the Booktrust site for more about the awards.

The winner of this years Guardian children’s fiction prize was announced tonight - what a year it has been for Patrick Ness and The Knife of Never Letting Go. Not only has he written a great first book for teenagers, but now he’s mopping up all the lit prizes to boot….

Congratulations Patrick!

(The Guardian has more)

News is out on the longlisted for the Booktrust Teenage Prize. The judges have their work cut out woth some steep competition:

• The Declaration by Gemma Malley (Bloomsbury)
• Newes from the Dead by Mary Hooper (Bodley Head)
• Creature of The Night by Kate Thompson (Bodley Head)
• Before I Die by Jenny Downham (David Fickling)
• The Knife That Killed Me by Anthony McGowan (Definitions)
• The Crossing of Ingo by Helen Dunmore (Harper Collins)
• Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine (HarperCollins)
• Dirty Angels by Andrew Clover (Hodder)
• Incarceron by Catherine Fisher (Hodder)
• The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner (Orion)
• Bad Blood by Rhiannon Lassiter (OUP)
• Black Rabbit Summer by Kevin Brooks (Puffin)
• What I Was by Meg Rosoff (Puffin)
• Snakehead by Anthony Horowitz (Walker)
• Apache by Tanya Landman (Walker)
• The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (Walker)

Great to see Kate Thompson’s name up there already - I think Creature will be featuring on plenty of lists this year (and next)!. Still, The Knife of Never Letting Go, Before I Die or What I was would all be deserving choices…

Lil brother’s graduation last night (feeling very groggy today as a result):

In a packed, salubrious room on Dublin’s Kildare Street Children’s Books Ireland brought together all the who-be-whatsits to announce the winners of the 2008 awards.

There were enthusiastic speeches from Seamus Cashman (chairman of CBI’s board), Bisto (aka Premier Foods) and David Norris warned everyone about the dangers of wearing high-heels when accepting awards. And then Keith O’Sullivan (the chief judge) got down to business. All of the shortlist were presented with a certificate but not all of the shortlisted writers were able to make it - Oliver Jeffers sent in his doppleganger Sarah Webb, Siobhan Dowd was represented by her husband Geoff Morgan and David Fickling and CBI’s Tom Donegan did his best to impersonate FE Higgins.

The three honour awards were presented to: Oliver Jeffers, Roddy Doyle and FE Higgins.

The Eilís Dillon Award was presented to Tom Kelly for The thing with Finn.

And the Bisto Book of the Year Award went to: Siobhan Dowd’s The London Eye Mystery. Geoff Morgan and David Fickling accepted the award on Siobhan’s behalf and David gave a bar of ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy‘ in his acceptance speech. Brilliant!

Congratulations to all the shortlisted books and winners.

> Click here for more on the awards shortlist.

I’m late getting to this: The Carnegie Medal shortlist was announced somewhere in mid-April. The award goes to an outstanding book for children and young people, first published in the UK.

This year’s shortlist is:

Kevin Crossley-Holland | Gatty’s Tale
Linzi Glass | Ruby Red
Elizabeth Laird | Crusade
Tanya Landman | Apache
Philip Reeve | Here Lies Arthur
Meg Rossoff | What I Was
Jenny Valentine | Finding Violet Park

There are a few titles I have read, What I Was and Crusade, some names I have read before, Philip Reeve and Kevin Crossley-Holland, and others who are new to me. As with all awards, I’m surprised not see some names up there - David Almond, Derek Landy and Siobhan Dowd’s London Eye Mystery.

The Kate Greenaway Medal shortlist on the other-hand is spot on, with only Oliver Jeffers missing. Some of the year’s best books are listed - including two from the brilliant Emily Gravett.

Anthony Browne| Silly Billy
Polly Dunbar | Penguin
Emily Gravett | Little Mouse’s Book of Big Fears
Emily Gravett | Monkey and Me
Jane Ray (Text by Carol Ann Duffy) | The Lost Happy Endings
Chris Riddel | Ottoline and the Yellow Cat
Ed Vere| Banana!