Which book will win the CILIP Carnegie medal 2014?

I don't know! But I'm going to take a punt.

First off, while we've read and reviewed all of the Carnegie shortlist, neither of us has independently read all of them so we couldn't have a proper 'judging chat' this year. But here's my comparative recap and the heavily subjective approach I've taken this year.

We have reviewed each of the shortlisted titles and you can find links to all of them on our dedicated CILIP Carnegie page.We'd read and reviewed four of the shortlisted books before the nominations were announced in November 2013 and we haven't reread any of them - so there's some hazy memory recall going on (most definitely not what the actual judges will be relying on).

Back in May 2013, I read the first few chapters of The Child's Elephant by Rachel Campbell-Johnston. I have a thing when I start reading middle grade or YA review books: if the first few pages (or chapters) read like a book that Little M will fall in love with more than me, I pass it on to her. Sometimes, it just feels like she should be the first one to read it and rave about it to me and anyone else, rather than the other way around. And she did. She still raves about The Child's Elephant. I haven't finished reading it primarily because I know it's not my personal winner, and the poignant relationship between a village boy and a baby elephant keeps making me cry. But, everything about The Child's Elephant is beautiful. It could well be someone else's winner.

Next up was Rebecca Stead's Liar & Spy. Both of us started reading this but stopped after a few chapters because of a slow pace. However, I picked it up again and the rest (and the whole of the book) is extraordinarily good.

Then to Blood Family by Anne Fine where I found I was skipping large sections of the final part, was unconvinced by the plot twist (though that could have been a marketing issue), and the writing wasn't as smooth as some of the other shortlisted titles. I did not enjoy the subject matter but Little M thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

The last novel I read before the nominations were announced was Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper. I loved it, it was one of the best stories I'd read in a while and at that point, it was top of my pick for the Carnegie (despite preferring the first part a lot more than the second).

After the nominations, the first title I sought out was Julie Berry's All the Truth That's in Me. I was captivated from start to finish. It was incredibly intense and stirring, the structure of the novel added an almost intrinsic element to it, and I loved it very much. There were some aspects that made the plot a little full at times but, oh, that voice.....Ghost Hawk slipped a spot on my list and All the Truth That's in Me was the one to beat.

Then came Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell. Most definitely, this is the novel that I imagine becoming a modern children's classic: it has probably every element that I love in children's fiction (although I was unconvinced by the fight scene).

From the warmth and brightness of Rooftoppers, I ventured onto The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks. I was very afraid and I should have been! But, I was also incredibly surprised. As with Blood Family, I really disliked the subject matter but the writing's changing structure and form were very clever and took the novel to another level for me. However, the ending was flat with many unanswered questions. I liked to see the novel as metaphysical but I don't think it was intended to be interpreted that way. An accessible but challenging read for all sorts of reasons, not least of which are linked to literary questions.

And finally, The Wall by William Sutcliffe: an important story, eloquently and beautifully told but for me, some of the plot elements were distracting.

I think it's wide open this year. I woulkd highly recommend seven of the eight novels to different readers. But, "Throw your heart out in front of you and run to catch it" says Bat's grandmother in The Child's Elephant. I'm doing just that. If I'm throwing my heart out, I'll almost always go with the 'voice'. So for me, it's All the Truth That's In Me (but with Sophie and all Charles' Maxim's possibles chasing close behind).

What are your favourites?

Illustrator Victo Ngai and The Time Out of Time Cover

It's blog tour time! Illustrator Victo Ngai talks us through designing her eye-catching cover for the first book in Maureen Doyle McQuerry's Time Out of Time saga. Ngai has been named one of Forbe's 30 Under 30 for Outstanding visual artists. Victo is short for Victoria and she often illustrates covers for the New Yorker.

 

Time out of time

the horned man rides

with the forest queen,

the greenman dies,

the heavens bear witness,

the great wolf flies

and Timothy James stands alone. 

 Over to Victo…..

I have been working on a new book series called Time out of Time by Maureen Doyle McQuerry. Book 1 Beyond the Door has just come out!

Time out of Time is an imagination packed fantasy story which draws inspiration from Celtic mythologies. Our hero is a shy bookish boy named Timothy who is fairly certain nothing interesting will ever happen to him. However, everything changes on one dark spring night. A mystery knocks on his door and starts revealing his role in an ancient prophecy…

Time Out of Time: Beyond the Door - full cover illustration by Victo Ngai

Choosing a moment from a book as cover is always a fun challenge. It has be a true representation of the story without spoiling the plot, while being visually stimulating. I decided to go with the Wild Hunt because:

a) There’s a giant golden flying wolf, who wouldn’t like that?

b) We introduce our main character - Timothy. 

c) The chase set the stage of adventure and the storm set the mood of danger.

d) It’s a perfect moment to show the parallel existence of Timothy’s ordinary world and the fantastical world “beyond the door”. 

This art has been featured on the American Library Association Booklist cover, what an honor! 

An early sketch by Victo Ngai

Another sketch by Victo Ngai

 

Big thanks to Maureen McQuerry for this great story, Chad Beckerman and Editor Howard Reeves for all the great input.

I hope you would enjoy the book as much as I do!

 

Don’t forget to decipher the secret code which comes with the book! 

 

******

 

 Thanks to Victo Ngai for this. I love that cover!

 

Time Out of Time: Beyond the Door by Maureen Doyle McQuerry is published in the UK by Abrams.


Next stop on the tour - Serendipity Reviews on 16th June.


 

 

Joanna Swainson chat

We sat down for a chat...with Joanna Swainson, literary agent

Hardman & Swainson, the literary agency for Bone Jack by Sara Crowe, is two years old this month. Bone Jack was tremendously enjoyable to read so we got a bit of a lowdown from Joanna Swainson about the book, the agency, herself and the agency’s mysterious third party.

Joanna Swainson and Caroline Hardman

WSD: You’re two years old! What will you be celebrating?

Joanna Swainson: I can’t believe it’s two years already. One of the best things about this is that, having been in business for two years, the agency has become eligible for membership of the Association of Authors’ Agents. Of course we’ve always run the business along AAA guidelines but we made our application, met the criteria and were accepted, which is worthy of a wee celebration as a milestone in itself. Other than that, I think we’ll raise a glass to our authors – they’re everything to us - have a laugh then get back to work!

WSD: You travelled through Spain and France, lived in a tent and read the whole of Dickens in a year! Sounds bookishly romantic. What else did you manage to fit in on this trip?

Joanna Swainson: When I left school we lived in the middle of nowhere on the moors in Yorkshire. I treasure that, now, but at the time I was determined to get away as soon as possible, so worked for a month in the local paper mill, saved up £400 and hit the road with my twin sister. It was basically a year of living hand to mouth, busking a bit, picking fruit for cash as it ripened in different regions and every now and then having to phone up dad to borrow some money when we completely ran out. I couldn’t possibly go into detail about exactly what we got up to or I might be arrested, but what a time!

WSD: I recently loved Bone Jack, which is how I heard of your agency, so I'm intrigued to hear that you lived in a tent for a year while travelling: a bit of synergy with Sara Crowe's lifestyle, perhaps? Please could you say what it was about Bone Jack that stood out for you?

Joanna Swainson: Sara has spent the last year or so wandering the British Isles in a campervan with her partner and their two dogs. I do envy that freedom. It’s a bit of a cheat to say I spent the whole year in a tent. It was more like nine months as we spent the winter in Seville and it was freezing so we rented a tiny flat to get us off those windblown streets.

What really stood out about Bone Jack was Sara’s ability to evoke place. Her descriptions are so vivid and I feel as if I’ve been to those mountains and that lake and Thornditch itself. Tolley Carn, Monks Bridge, Stag’s Leap – great place names. I love the mythical and folky aspects and that it’s a story of two boys’ friendship tested to the limit. Best of all, now that it’s published, is kids seem to love it – my daughter read it all through double maths at school to finish it. And my 11 year old nephew was gripped by it, too, immediately asking if she’d written another book. No pressure, Sara!

WSD: While Sara Crowe has her dogs, Hardman & Swainson has Monty. Please introduce us to him.

Joanna Swainson: Monty is a three year old black cat with some oriental heritage, greeny yellow eyes and a rather small head. He’s very chatty and drinks water from the intern’s glass on the table when she’s not looking, rather than from his own bowl. And he’s always on the wrong side of the door.

WSD: Other than reading books, do you have any hobbies?

Joanna Swainson: I come from a family of musicians – my grandfather was a wonderful pianist, my mother and father are professional violinist and viola player respectively. So music runs in the blood and I love to sit down at the piano now, or play my guitar or fiddle. I’m not nearly as good as I’d like to be! I love all sorts of music but if I could have anyone’s voice it would be Sandy Denny’s. Other than that, come winter I’m a bit of a knitter.

******

Joanna Swainson (from Hardman & Swainson Literary Agency) is very friendly on Twitter, so you can find out more about her there.

 

For more about Bone Jack, here’s M’s review and an interview with author Sara Crowe.

The Vacationers - Emma Straub

The Vacationers by Emma Straub

Review by M (Adult Fiction)

The Post family goes on holiday to Mallorca: Manhattan-living husband Jim and wife Franny take their two grown children, a best friend, and partners to an out-of-the-way villa. It was supposed to be a thirty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration but a ‘discovered workplace affair’ has thrown a couple of spokes in the wheel.

This is very much not the sort of novel that I would actively pick up to read (though the cover is quite catching!) and in many ways the characters are all many worlds away from my life (no spoons from Tiffanys here and my family is the most functional ever – of course!). But it was here so I gave it a go. I read it quickly and it is funny, in that ‘sideways’ sort of way. It also made me want to go on holiday, possibly even to Mallorca, which is not a transatlantic flight away for me.

The two week holiday, or vacation, is the setting for the plot from beginning to end, and most of it takes place in a heavenly sounding villa. Of course, like all middle class extended 'families', this one has its dysfunctions and all of the characters and couples and friends have their ‘issues’ and their ‘secrets’, from body-building powershakes to gay adoption and 'class values' (and not forgetting ‘the affair'). While there is something to dislike about most of the characters (except Lawrence, and Carmen gets a rough deal, in my opinion) there is also plenty to like, and the bossy, people-feeding matriarch, who is Franny, is actually a delight.

 

The Vacationers is a novel that is very much about, though not too deeply, the characters and their relationships (which is very much the sort of novel that I like to read). A funny and feelgood-but-not-too good-cos-that-would-be-uncool beach read.

 

Publication details: Picador, 5th June 2014, London, paperback

This copy: for review from the publisher

 

 

Cristina Henriquez chat

We Sat Down For a Chat...with Cristina Henriquez

The Book of Unknown Americans is a very tender immigration story. I loved the coming of age thread and the inclusion of chapters from other immigrants who lived in the building. I also really admire the UK cover image, and for me it forms part of the novel's narrative. It’s author, Cristina Henriquez, chats to us about it.

WSD: In the Acknowledgments for The Book of Unknown Americans, you thank your mom for providing the story that set your novel in motion. What was that story?

Cristina Henriquez: My mother is a translator for the school district where she lives, so she works with a lot of immigrant families and she specializes in working with families whose children have special needs. She often talks to me about them and what they’re going through. One of the families she told me about was struggling to take care of their daughter who had had an illness since birth, and I found myself thinking about them a lot, about what it’s like to be a parent where the only thing that matters to you is making sure your child is okay, about the challenges of doing that in a place where you don’t know the language nor any of the customs, where it’s difficult even to figure out how to take a bus to a school meeting, and all of that somehow gave rise to the book.

WSD: In your novel, food is frequently used to signify poverty but also home (as well as 'not home'). What things conjure up images, or thoughts, of home for you?

Cristina Henriquez: That’s an interesting question. I’m not exactly sure what home is for me. When I was growing up, my family and I moved every few years, and even after I left for college and was on my own, and then when I was with my now-husband, I continued that pattern. I’ve lived in enough places that it’s difficult to think of any one of them as home. The older I get, the more I start thinking that home isn’t actually physical or geographical at all. It’s emotional, a sense of belonging, a feeling of ease and of connection. So for me, when someone asks me about my home now, I think not about a place but about people, the people I love best, the people I feel most myself around, which are my husband and children. Anything that reminds me of them – soccer, Curious George, chocolate milk boxes – conjures thoughts of home.

WSD: Why does Maribel not have a chapter in her voice?

Cristina Henriquez: I don’t have a good answer for that. Maybe I should have given her one. My idea was to give every apartment unit one representative chapter, and then beyond that I chose Mayor and Alma to be the primary narrators. Celia, Mayor’s mother, doesn’t have her own chapter, either. Her husband, Rafael is the voice for their family. For the Riveras, since Alma was already spoken for, either Maribel or Arturo could have narrated the family’s one chapter and considering how the plot unfolds, my instinct was to give Arturo the last word. Even without hearing from her directly, hopefully readers finish the novel with the sense that Maribel has gotten stronger by the end, the sense that she will go on and get even stronger still.

WSD: Yes, I think the novel gives a very strong sense of Maribel and her growth.

*****

Read M's review of  The Book of Unknown Americans

Manchee & Bones - Little M's new blog

Mac, or Little M as many of you know her, has started up her own book blog. She's named it 'Manchee & Bones' after some of her favourite dog characters in books (Manchee from Patrick Ness' The Knife of Never Letting Go and Bones from Sam Angus' Soldier Dog).

I'm not completely sure but I think a complimentary tweet from Rooftoppers' author, Katherine Rundell, prompted the motivation for Mac's new move.

Go and have a look at 'Manchee & Bones'. You'll currently find a Rooftoppers review and a list of books Mac would like to read for GCSE English Literature. If you look closely, where 'We Sat Down's' book reviews often feature our pink and red heart bookmark, 'Manchee & Bones' fittingly features a blue and orange pawprints bookmark. Head on over.

Em and the Big Hoom - Jerry Pinto

Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto

 

Review by M (adult fiction)

 

Em and the Big Hoom features the most scintillating dialogue and moves at a pace that had me happily clambering.

Em and the Big Hoom is a novel (which makes it fiction?), though it reads very much like an entertaining yet deeply heartfelt memoir. This is a novel about mental illness. I’m not sure I’ve read many of these for fear of them being drearily and saddeningly depressing. Em and the Big Hoom is not like that. It truly is a….riot!  

Written from the young adult son’s perspective, he presents a story which is both a celebration of his mother, Imelda’s infuriating mad life and an attempt to understand both her and her relationship with his father. Among other names, his parents are known as Em and the Big Hoom – I love that!

Variably diagnosed with schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder, Em just accepts herself as mad, and everyone around her just goes up and down with her. It’s a vibrant but rough ride for everyone, but particularly full of laughs for the reader.

The novel is set in 1960s Bombay, India and the family are anglophile Catholics. These add a colourful and engaging context to the story.

Highly recommended.

 

Publication details: Viking (Penguin), May 2014, London, hardback

This edition: digital review copy from the publisher

The Book of Unknown Americans - Cristina Henriquez

The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez

 

Review by M (adult fiction)

 

The Book of Unknown Americans is a immigration story. I will never tire of these. This one is especially tender and it's also a little different to some of the others that I have read.
 

The novel puts ‘parents doing their best for their children’ at its heart. The main plot follows the Rivera family who leave a life that they love in Mexico in order for their teen daughter, Maribel, to attend a special needs school in the USA. They arrive in Delaware to find that their new home is in a bare grey apartment building in the middle of nowhere.

From here on, the novel really is The Book of Unknown Americans and it follows this premise in both its narrative structure and in its plot. While the plot of the Rivera family (how they came to be here and how they get on) brings flow to the novel, it’s the apartment building residents and a tragically bittersweet coming-of-age tale that really bring the novel to life.

The chapters are narrated by different characters, and all of them are people who are South American immigrants residing in the same block as the Riveras. Some of these chapters add to the development of the main plot but a few of them are an aside, where the character simply tells us how they came to live here – and their stories are all so different yet so similar too. In this way, a varied and moving picture of immigration is created. Mixed in with all the poverty and sorrows, there is a lot of joy, and hope, and life.

The UK cover (pictured here) fittingly combines the tone, hue and themes of the novel: a variety of South American people with their hopes, dreams, stories and labours holding up America. This is the statue of liberty as we don’t usually see it, with its added textured colours giving life to what is often just a grey structure.

 

Publication details: 5 June 2014, Canongate, Edinburgh, trade paperback

This copy: for review from the publisher

 

 

 

Memoirs of a Neurotic Zombie - Cover Reveal & Exclusive Extract

Jeff Norton read an early extract from his Memoirs of a Neurotic Zombie to us at a Faber brunch earlier this year. The audience response, including ours, was loud and frequent laughter. We delighted to host an exclusive extract and the cover from his forthcoming novel.

“My name is Adam Meltzer and the last thing I remember was being stung by a bee while swinging at a robot-shaped piñata on my twelfth birthday. I was dead before the candy hit the ground.”

Here's Faber publicity introducing the novel:

Memoirs of a Neurotic Zombie is narrated by the hilarious Adam Meltzer - pre-teen, worrywart, and now zombie. Adam's family gets the fright of their lives when he turns up at their door desperate for a shower . . . three months after his funeral. When most people think zombies, they think of eating people, and unintelligent monsters.

But Adam doesn’t like germs. Or dirt. Or things being disorganised. So waking up as a zombie was definitely not in his plans, and the idea of eating people is disgusting. Getting stung by a bee doesn’t normally lead to becoming a zombie, and it seems incredibly unfair that it’s happened to Adam.

Soon Adam's back at school trying to fit in and not draw extra attention to himself, but when he sees his neighbour Ernesto transform into a chupacubra, and the beautiful Corina (Adam's number one mega-crush) turns out to be a (vegan) vampire, undead life is never going to be the same again.

A hilarious adventure caper - if Ferris Bueller met Shaun of the Dead - all about friendship and being yourself . . . even if you're undead.

 

And, now, here’s a never-seen-before extract from the novel:

 

The object of Adam’s undead affections turns out to be a vampire.

 

“Corina hovered in the night sky, silhouetted by the full moon. And then she flew straight towards us.

She actually flew.

It was incredible to watch. Sure I was relieved that she wasn’t going to smash into the ground and that I wouldn’t have to make a police statement, but I was also gripped with envy.

She could fly!

‘That’s not fair,’ I uttered.

Ernesto grunted, ‘Huh?’

Flight was the one superpower I’d always wanted; and Corina Parker had it. I mean, not event NinjaMan could fly. And he was the best. But somehow my weirdo, Goth European neighbour could defy gravity.

‘She’s flying this way.’ I said. ‘Stand up straight.’

‘Just great,’ Ernesto sighed. ‘I finally get to talk to her and I’m covered in scales.’

He had a point. He was not about to make a good first impression. And the scales were the least of his problems. But then again, I wasn’t exactly ready for the yearbook photos.

What if I totally grossed her out?

But when Corina touched down and looked at me, she didn’t even bat an elongated eyelash at my decomposing skin. It may not have been eye contact, but it was the closest I’d ever got to acknowledgement of my existence in an entire year.”

 

Extract ends

 

 

*******

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leeds Book Awards 2014

The winners of the Leeds Book Awards for secondary school children were announced today at a ceremony attended by about 200 Leeds students at Leeds Civic Hall. Geek Girl by Holly Smale and Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher won the 11-14 and 14-16 year categories respectively.

Holly Smale

The winners were voted for by Leeds’ school readers from a shortlist selected by the Leeds Book Awards organisers. Master of ceremonies for the day was poet Andy Craven-Griffiths who is always entertaining, and does a brilliant job of improvising when necessary. Only he could prove that 14-16 year old teens can’t roarrrrr!!!

Smale and Pitcher answered questions from the school audience alongside other shortlisted authors: Gillian Cross (After Tomorrow), Paula Rawsthorne (Blood Tracks), Alison Rattle (The Quietness), CJ Flood (Infinite Sky), Sarah Mussi (Siege), Lucy Christopher (The Killing Woods). Other shortlisted authors couldn’t make it (and that’s why there were no male authors there!).

Questions from the floor followed a pattern and there were many about influences and inspirations, and sequels!

I was delighted to hear that Lucy Christopher (The Killing Woods), a previous Printz Honor award winner, loves visiting South Africa. Interestingly, if you buy a US and a UK copy of her novel you will find that they are slightly different (now, how about that for narrative and textual analyses!).  If she could choose a mentor it would have been Shakespeare whereas Holly Smale’s mentor of choice would have been the late Sue Townsend. Smale is also very tall!

Both Paula Rawsthorne (Blood Tracks) and Alison Rattle’s (The Quietness) novels were inspired by court proceedings and trials! Rawsthorne wants to be excited by her own story whilst she is writing whereas Rattle really doesn’t enjoy the writing process – but loves editing her work.

CJ Flood’s first name is Chelsea and the character Iris, in Infinite Sky, is an idealised version of herself as a child. Sarah Mussi (Siege) had lived in Ghana for a number of years and I was very pleased to hear that she can’t remember all the books she’s read (ditto!). Gillian Cross (After Tomorrow) has always been a writer and says she's never had a 'proper job'. She thinks awards like these are precious to writers like her as they boost their self belief.

I was very interested to hear that Annabel Pitcher’s Ketchup Clouds was first written as a straight narrative and not through letters. She’s also a self-confessed perfectionist. Also, she had a very young guest with her – a babe in arms (and what would have happened without good old Nina D being there to step in when he refused to sleep).

I left all the smiling authors to sign away with queues of chattering school children and their teachers. How many of them noticed all the Leeds’ owls, do you think?

 

You can read our reviews of:

-        Ketchup Clouds here (M & Little M joint review) and here (teen book club)

-        GeekGirl

-        The Quietness

-        HostageThree (by Nick Lake who couldn’t make it)

 

You can read our interview with:

- Annabel Pitcher