Yup it’s my favourite time of year again – Carnegie Time!
Our Shadowing group seems to have about doubled in size this year, though it could be even more: we’ll not know until our first official meeting next Wednesday lunchtime, but so far interest levels have been at an all time high.
The shortlist was announced today:
Prisoner of the Inquisition, by Theresa Breslin
Zarita, only daughter of the town magistrate lives a life of ease. Saulo, son of a family reduced by circumstances to begging, swears vengeance, after witnessing his father wrongfully arrested and brutally killed. As the Spanish Inquisition arrives, bringing a climate of suspicion and acts of torture to the town, the fates of Zarita and Saulo intertwine, with tragic consequences.
The Death Defying Pepper Roux, by Geraldine McCaughrean
Pepper Roux awakes on his fourteenth birthday; the day he has been told he must die. He doesn’t want to disappoint, but he doesn’t want to die either. So he goes on the run, setting sail on a sea of adventures, courting mayhem and disaster at every turn. Can he escape his fate – for a while at least?
Monsters of Men, by Patrick Ness
The third and final volume in the “Chaos Walking Trilogy” finds three armies marching on New Prentisstown, each intent on destroying the others. Todd and Viola are caught in the middle with no chance of escape or, it seems, of stopping the fighting. But then a third voice enters the fray, one bent on revenge.
The Bride’s Farewell, by Meg Rosoff
On the morning of her wedding, Pell Ridley creeps out of bed in the dark, kisses her sisters goodbye and flees on horseback, determined to escape a future that offers nothing but hard work, and sorrow. The road ahead is rich with encounters that lead her closer to the untold story of her past. And she meets a hunter, whose fate also seems strangely entwined with her own.
White Crow, by Marcus Sedgwick
Two lives, two centuries apart, but obsessed by the same question: is there life after death? When city girl Rebecca arrives in the quiet village of Winterfold one relentlessly hot summer, her uneasy friendship with strange, elfin Ferelith sets in motion a shocking chain of events
Out of Shadows, by Jason Wallace
It is Zimbabwe in the 1980s. The civil war is over, independence has been won, and Robert Mugabe has come to power, offering hope, land and freedom to black Africans. For Robert Jacklin, it’s all new too as he gets used to a new continent, a new country, a new school. But he is quickly forced to realise that for many of his fellow pupils, the battle for their old country rages on.
Good list! There were cheers and whoops for some of the books when the list was read out at break time.
This year we’re also taking our Shadowing participation a step further. Last year some of our members were frustrated by the lack of user functionality on our official Shadowing site (y’know, that one that WON the Shadowing site prize – wooo!) so this year, as well as running that, we’ll be posting to our very own, super-swanky new blog – the Roundwood Readers! We’ll be posting out reviews, thoughts, and book trailers there, giving us the chance to show you more photos of our process, more videos of our discussions, and more of our ever valuable opinions! Comments and feedback on the student posts would be greatly appreciated.
