Nova Weetman tells Reading Time how plotting helped her up the ante in her suspenseful début Older Reader novel, The Haunting of Lily Frost. She talks about her own brushes with past lives and haunting and how her fear of death helped her write what is an edge of your seat read… I’ve always written contemporary, real-world stories, and I wanted to try to tell a story that sat between two genres. The Haunting of Lily Frost is part coming-of-age and part ghost story. Having the supernatural elements meant that hopefully I could take the simple story of a girl…
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WEETMAN, Nova The Haunting of Lily Frost UQP, 2014 204pp $19.95 pbk ISBN 9780702250156 SCIS 1660769 Our introduction to the protagonist of Nova Weetman’s debut novel, Lily Frost is through a memory ‘I almost died when I was five.’ And it is this powerful opening line that sets the tone and connecting threads for this well paced coming of age/thriller. Fifteen year old Lily and her best friend Ruby are neighbours. They live in Melbourne where school, friendship and boys are the focus of their existence. So when Lily’s parents make a change of life decision and move the family…
Andrew Joyner won the Book of the Year : Early Childhood Award for The Swap, a picture book with text by Jan Ormerod. Andrew gave this acceptance speech at the Awards Announcement at the National Library of Australia on Friday 15 August 2014. Thank you so much to the judges and the Children’s Book Council for this award. I’m in fine and flattering company on this shortlist, and looking at all of these books reminds me of the great work that the Children’s Book Council and its volunteers do to bring wider recognition to Australian children’s books and our many…
Fiona Wood won the Book of the Year : Older Readers Award for her YA novel, Wildlife. Fiona gave this acceptance speech at the Awards Announcement at the National Library of Australia on Friday 15 August 2014. Thank you, CBCA, for the wonderful work you do, year in, year out, promoting books and reading to young people. I am delighted and grateful that you have chosen Wildlife as Book of the Year, Older Readers for 2014. Thanks to the judges for your generous dedication of time and expertise to this huge task. I’m proud to stand with fellow shortlisted and…
The amazing Shaun Tan won the Picture Book of the Year Award for his beautiful book The Rules of Summer. As Shaun was unable to be at the Awards announcement in Canberra to accept his Award, he gave his acceptance speech via a pre-recorded video. This is the text of that video… Apologies for being unable to attend the awards this year, although I’m well represented by my editor Helen Chamberlin, with whom I’ve been in cahoots since my very first children’s book assignment, drawing pictures of a demonically possessed cat in 1996 – things haven’t changed much since, there’s…
WINNER – EVE POWNALL AWARD FOR INFORMATION BOOKS FAILLE, Chris: JEREMY Illustrated by Danny SNELL Working Title Press, ISBN: 9781921504402, unpaged Jeremy is a baby kookaburra brought into the lounge room by the family cat. The layout and design makes this book appealing to very young readers. It follows Jeremy’s development as he is carefully reared by a family, from a featherless hatchling to a mature kookaburra and finally his release back into the wild. The simple chronological narrative is enhanced and extended by the realistic acrylic paintings. The illustrations are vibrant thus encouraging the reader to explore in detail…
WINNER – EARLY CHILDHOOD CATEGORY ORMEROD, Jan: THE SWAP Illustrated by Andrew JOYNER Little Hare Books, Hardie Grant Egmont. ISBN: 9781921541414, unpaged Caroline is jealous of her dribbly little brother and when she is left in charge she tries to swap him at the Baby shop. She trials several replacement baby brothers and finds fault with them all. Her own baby brother may not be so bad after all. The playful language in the book makes clever use of onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition and simple rhythm, which creates a joyous, read aloud text. The detailed and expressive art, a delightful homage…
WINNER – PICTURE BOOK OF THE YEAR TAN, Shaun: RULES OF SUMMER Hachette Australia, ISBN: 9780734410672, unpaged To become lost in a Shaun Tan picture book is to suddenly find your imagination. Rules of Summer is an extraordinary book containing stunning artwork and a sparse narrative amid an emotional landscape. The reader is invited to follow two boys, perhaps brothers, as they experience some essential lessons of life within a surreal fantasy. Reading this book is like exploring an art gallery and losing yourself in the stories that the paintings inspire. The spare but thought provoking text meanwhile offers opportunities…
WINNER – BOOK OF THE YEAR: YOUNGER READERS JINKS, Catherine: CITY OF ORPHANS: A VERY UNUSUAL PURSUIT Allen & Unwin, ISBN: 9781743313060, 329 pages Catherine Jinks has created a well-constructed historical adventure that combines with fantasy to capture the atmosphere of Victorian England. This is the first book in The City of Orphans series with a storyline that is original and satisfies the reader on a number of levels. The setting in underground London is dark and menacing and full of fascinating and believable Dickensian characters that draw the reader into their often dark and risky world. Birdie, a ten…
WINNER – BOOK OF THE YEAR: OLDER READERS WOOD, Fiona: WILDLIFE Pan Macmillan ISBN: 9781742612317, 369 pages Three very different teenagers find out about themselves and some of the big questions of life during their school’s outdoor education term. Life, death and sex are the hefty themes of this book and they are handled brilliantly with honest and authentic teenage voices, as the characters reveal not quite all through writing in their daily journals. The setting in the wilderness campus of a school is a wonderful platform to showcase the difficulties and issues arising from living so closely together along…