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The Costa and The Newbery

Today, The Costa Book Award category winners were announced. The Costa Book Awards are a series of five literary awards--First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children's Book--given to books by authors based in Great Britain and Ireland. The criteria are to select well-written, enjoyable books that they would strongly recommend anyone to read.

Blood Red Road by Moira Young won the Children's Book category. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the second book in the proposed series (Dust Lands), Rebel Heart, due out this year.

From The Guardian:

The first in a planned dystopian trilogy for teens, this searing debut has been compared to Cormac McCarthy and optioned by Ridley Scott. It tells the story of Saba's epic quest to get her beloved twin brother back after he is captured in an apocalyptic monster sandstorm. Teaming up with a gang of girl revolutionaries she finds she has the power to change a corrupt society from the inside - and change the course of her own civilisation along the way.
 
What the judges said:
“It’s astonishing how, in her first novel, Moira Young has so successfully bound believable characters into a heart-stopping adventure. She kept us reading, and left us hungry for more. A really special book.” Read an extract from Blood Red Road.

The Guardian also has a nice story on Moira Young here. 


Speaking of children's book awards, the ALA Youth Media Awards announcements are only a few weeks away. The awards, which include the Newbery and Caldecott, will be announced at 7:45 CT from Dallas, TX during ALA's midwinter conference on January 23rd. There will be a live webcast of the awards starting at 7:30 CT. 

So that still leaves plenty of time to catch up on a few titles before the big announcements. Jonathan Hunt, over at the Heavy Medal blog, has posted a list of children's titles that appeared on the "best of" lists for 2011. That list will give you a nice place to start for last minute reading.

I know there have been many mock Newbery, etc., predictions, but I wonder: What are your predictions?

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