Grampian Children's Book Awards.

I had an excellent afternoon compering the Grampian Children's Book Award at Aberdeen University.

Nine years ago, librarians from schools in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray organised a book event they hoped would capture the imaginations of secondary school children in S1 - S3. The aim of the award was to promote reading for pleasure and involve pupils in the process of selecting and judging books for the award. Pupils vote for the titles to make up a shortlist of six books. 

At the ceremony, pupils have the opportunity to buy books, meet and chat to the authors who in turn inspire the young readers to continue their reading habit and to develop their own creative writing.

     

The nominations were:

Dave Cousins for '15 Days without a Head'.

Barry Hutchison for 'The 13th Horseman'.

Mark Lowery for 'Socks are not Enough'.

Cathy MacPhail for 'Out of the Depths'.

Patrick Ness for 'A Monster Calls'.

Annabel Pitcher for 'My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece'. 

The winner was Patrick Ness, author of 'A Monster Calls'.  

'Conor has the same dream every night, ever since his mother first fell ill, ever since she started the treatments that don't quite seem to be working. But tonight is different. Tonight, when he wakes, there's a visitor at his window. It's ancient, elemental, a force of nature. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.

It wants the truth...

I read 'A Monster Calls' and thoroughly enjoyed it - a worthy winner!  

Prizes were also awarded to pupils for three competitions: Best Review, Best Poster and the Best Presentation.