Rebecca Stead’s Liar & Spy has nabbed the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize - keeping back competition from John Green (The Fault in our Stars), David Almond (The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas) and Katherine Rundell (Rooftoppers)
Guardian children’s editor, doctor and doyenne of children’s books as well as chair of the judging panel, Julia Eccleshare said:
Liar & Spy is an incredibly sensitive book. Its central characters are all children who have complexities in their lives which they are dealing with. It’s a novel about how children have to navigate the world, and it has an open-handedness which means that readers may be surprised as to where it finishes. It’s always interesting in children’s fiction to see what’s coming from the US, and it’s appropriate that this Newbery-winning author be highly regarded in the UK too. It is a quiet book, but although the drama is finely-tuned, the overall impact is powerful, moving and surprising.
Have you read Liar & Spy yet?
(And then go read When You Reach Me, Stead’s Newbury-winning novel from 2010!!)
