Thursday, July 07, 2011

Branford Boase 2011 Award

Out Of Shadows by Jason Wallace, edited by Charlie Sheppard and published by Andersen
Press, has won the Branford Boase Award, which is given each year to the most outstanding work of fiction for children by a first time novelist.

The Branford Boase Award was set up to encourage new writers and is given each year to the most promising work of fiction for children by a debut novelist. The Branford Boase Award also honours the editor of the winning title and highlights the importance of the editor in nurturing new talent.

The book was reviewed in Carousel in the Spring 2011 issue:

"This tough, bleak book has won the Costa Children's Prize. This is not a book for children but for young adults and adults. The question at the heart of this powerful story is a moral one - would killing Mugabe be defensible given all that we now know about this administration. The story begins with a thirteen-year-old English boy at a mainly white boys school in Zimbabwe. The time is the early eighties when many thought Mugabe was a force for good as the man who bought peace to the country. The language of the boys is often racist, they see their futures evaporating, their parents distraught. One boy, Ivan, seeks a remedy and it is his and the narrator's story that drives the book to its tragic conclusion" Enid Stephenson

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