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2010 Costa Children's Book Award

The 2010 Costa Children's Book Award goes to Out of Shadows by Jason Wallace, published by Andersen Press.

The Costa Book Awards is one of the most prestigious and popular literary prizes in the UK and recognizes some of the most enjoyable books of the year by writers based in the UK and Ireland.

About the book, the author and the judges' comments from the awards website:

Zimbabwe, 1980s.  The fighting has stopped, independence has been won and Robert Mugabe has come to power offering hope, land and freedom to black Africans.  It is the end of the Old Way and the start of a promising new era. 

For Robert Jacklin, it's all new - new continent, new country, new school.  And very quickly he is forced to understand a new way of thinking, because for some of his classmates the sound of guns is still loud, and their battles rage on.....white boys who want their old country back, not this new black African government.  Boys like Ivan.  Clever, cunning Ivan.  For him, there is still one last battle to fight, and he's taking it right to the very top.

Jason Wallace was born in Cheltenham in 1969 but moved  to London after his parents split up. Aged 12, his life was turned upside down when his mother remarried and the family emigrated to Zimbabwe. It is his experiences of growing up in a tough boarding school during the aftermath of the war for independence that forms the foundation of Out of Shadows.  Jason is currently a web designer and lives in South West London.

Judges: "A stunning debut novel without a false note.  Accomplished and powerful, it changes the way you think."

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