Edinburgh-based authors have dominated the shortlist for the 2016 Scottish Children’s Book Awards, with four out of the nine shortlisted authors hailing from the city.
Emily MacKenzie, Elizabeth Laird, Danny Weston and Joan Lingard are all up for the prestigious awards, which celebrate the most popular children’s and young adult books by Scottish authors or illustrators.
Run by Scottish Book Trust with support from Creative Scotland, they are Scotland’s largest book awards with a total prize fund of £12,000 – the nine shortlisted authors and illustrators receive £500 per book, and the three winning books receive £3,000 each.
Emily MacKenzie, who lives in the New Town and studied Graphic Design at Edinburgh College of Art, has been shortlisted in the Bookbug Readers (3-7 yrs) category for her debut picture book Wanted! Ralfy Rabbit Book Burglar, published by Bloomsbury.
She was recently shortlisted for The Independent Bookshop Week Children’s Picture Book Award and her second book, Stanley The Amazing Knitting Cat will be published by Bloomsbury in January 2016.
Commenting on her nomination, Emily said: “I was absolutely over the moon when I found out that Ralfy had been shortlisted for the Scottish Children’s Book Awards!
“The book has had such a warm response from teachers, librarians and the children I’ve read it to so far which has been really lovely, but the idea that a further 64,000 P1 children starting school in Scotland this year will receive a copy of it to enjoy and hopefully help them on to a path of loving reading and books as much as I do, blows my mind. It’s a dream come true and Ralfy and I want to say a big thank you to Scottish Book Trust for all their support!”
A free copy of Emily’s book will be gifted to every Primary 1 child during Book Week Scotland, in the Bookbug P1 Family Bag, along with copies of the two other shortlisted books in the Bookbug category.
This bag was produced by Scottish Book Trust in conjunction with Education Scotland and the Scottish Government as part of Read, Write, Count – a new literacy and numeracy campaign aimed at children in Primary 1 to 3.
Elizabeth Laird, based in the Old Town, has been shortlisted in the Younger Readers (8-11 yrs) category for her book The Fastest Boy in the World, published by Macmillan.
Elizabeth, who has previously appeared on the 2008 and 2010 Scottish Children’s Book Awards shortlists, is an award-winning author of children’s fiction and travel. She has written over 30 books for children and has been shortlisted five times for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, including for The Fastest Boy in the World this year. She has been nominated by UK IBBY for the international Hans Christian Anderson Award, and her new novel, Dindy and the Elephant, was published in June. Elizabeth now lives with her husband, splitting their time between London and Edinburgh.
Elizabeth said: “It’s a thrill and an honour to be shortlisted for the Scottish Children’s Book Award. ‘The Fastest Boy in the World’ is an Ethiopian lad called Solomon, who dreams of joining the ranks of the great African running champions. Now, thanks to this lovely award, he’ll be running all the way round Scotland. Go Solomon!”
Danny Weston, who lives in Tollcross, has been shortlisted in the Older Readers (12-16 yrs) category for his book The Piper, published by Andersen.
He has published three novels (under the name Philip Caveney) with Edinburgh-based publisher Fledgling Press. These are time travel adventures, all set in Edinburgh at different points in its history. The first book Crow Boy is set in Mary Kings Close, Seventeen Coffins is all about the tiny coffins found on Arthur’s Seat in 1836 and the most recent book,One For Sorrow, is all about Robert Louis Stevenson.
In the New Year, Fledgling will be bringing out The Calling – a novel featuring all the statues in Edinburgh. The Piper was also recently shortlisted for the North East Book Award.
Commenting on his nomination, Danny said: “I was surprised and delighted to hear that I had been shortlisted for this prestigious prize. At a time when the importance of literacy seems to be increasingly challenged, prizes like this mean more than ever to authors like me.”
Joan Lingard, who lives in Edinburgh’s New Town, has been shortlisted in the Older Readers (12-16 yrs) category for her novel Trouble on Cable Street, published by Catnip.
Joan has been a published writer for young people and adults for over 40 years and is best known for the Kevin and Sadie books, set in Northern Ireland at the time of the troubles there.
Her popular Elfie and Joe trilogy began when she discovered that her grandfather had run a pub in Stoke Newington in London and she started to research that area around the turn of the 19th Century when he and his wife lived there.
Following a conversation with a friend about the period between the first and second world wars, Joan began to research the impact of the Fascist movement in London in the 1930s, and the parallel conflict in Spain.
Joan said: “I’m delighted that Trouble on Cable Street has been shortlisted for the Scottish Children’s Book Awards. I have been writing for young people for over 40 years and I am always pleased to know that readers are enjoying my books.
“I enjoyed writing this book very much. It is set in a fascinating, unsettled time in Britain’s history – and European history – and the more I read about what happened in the 1930s the more I found parallels with some of the problems we’re facing today, eight decades later.
“In 1936 the communities of the East End of London rallied to stop a march by Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. They clashed with the police in Cable Street and the march was eventually stopped, but many people were injured in the fighting.
“I always enjoy writing strong characters, and once I’d settled on Isabella and her two brothers their story fell into place against the backdrop of London in those difficult times.”
THE FULL SCOTTISH CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARDS 2016 SHORTLIST:
Bookbug Readers (3-7 years)
- Never Tickle a Tiger by Pamela Butchart and Marc Boutavant (Bloomsbury)
- Wanted! Ralfy Rabbit Book Burglar by Emily MacKenzie (Bloomsbury)
- Mouse’s First Night at Moonlight School by Simon Puttock and Ali Pye (Nosy Crow).
Younger Readers (8-11 years)
- The Nowhere Emporium by Ross Mackenzie (Floris)
- The Mysteries of Ravenstorm Island: The Lost Children by Gillian Philip (Orchard)
- The Fastest Boy in the World by Elizabeth Laird (Macmillan)
Older Readers (12-16 years)
- Black Dove White Raven by Elizabeth Wein (Egmont)
- The Piper by Danny Weston (the pseudonym of Philip Caveney) (Andersen)
- Trouble on Cable Street by Joan Lingard (Catnip)
Over the next five months, children the length and breadth of Scotland will be reading the three shortlisted books in their age category and voting for their favourite.
The voting deadline is 5 February 2016. The three winning books will be announced at a special award ceremony on 4 March 2016.
Jasmine Fassl, Head of Schools at Scottish Book Trust, said: “The Scottish Children’s Book Awards are a perfect way to celebrate Scotland’s talented authors and illustrators, while also helping participating children to develop an independent love of books and reading.
“Hundreds of schools and libraries from literally every corner of Scotland involve tens of thousands of children in reading and reviewing the shortlisted books every year, proof of both the eagerness of Scottish young people to make their voice heard and of the quality of the shortlisted books.”
Leonie Bell, Director of Creative Development at Creative Scotland, added: “The Scottish Children’s Book Awards is a hugely successfully programme that celebrates children’s and young adult literature while also encouraging reading in children across Scotland.
“The fact that the winners are selected exclusively by children makes this an extra special award to win. By taking an active role in choosing the vote they are taking steps in their journeys as independent readers.
“This is a fantastic shortlist and we encourage young people across Scotland to get involved. We look forward to finding out who they choose as this year’s winners.”
The Scottish Children’s Book Awards also encourage budding authors or journalists to put pen to paper: the popular Book Review Competition offers pupils the chance to win book tokens, sponsored by Waterstones, and an author visit for their school.
Aspiring film makers can enter the book trailer competition to showcase their digital talents and win book tokens for their school. Scottish Book Trust provides extensive learning resources for teachers on how to create book trailers.
CALL Scotland has again worked with Scottish Book Trust and the publishers to create accessible digital versions of the nine shortlisted books for children and young people with physical, visual and reading or dyslexic difficulties, who can’t read the paper books. The accessible digital versions of the shortlisted books are available free of charge from CALL Scotland.
You can request books by going to http://www.callscotland.org.uk/Home/.
Pictures: Rob McDougall
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