FMK: Mostly Award-Winning British children's books

[rachelmanija]

Poll #18480 FMK: Mostly Award-Winning British children's books

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 38

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Kit's Wilderness, by David Almond. Kit's family moves to an old mining town, where he and another boy search the mines for the ghosts of their ancestors. Might be fantasy? Won the Printz Award.

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Fling
15 (44.1%)

Marry
10 (29.4%)

Kill
9 (26.5%)

Bottle Boy, by Stephen Elboz. An amnesiac boy and his brother are trapped in a life of crime. Author won the Smarties Prize but not for this book.

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Fling
10 (32.3%)

Marry
5 (16.1%)

Kill
16 (51.6%)

River Boy, by Tim Bowler. Jess's probably-dying grandfather is trying to finish one last painting; Jess meets a boy who might be the one from the painting. Possibly fantasy? Won the Carnegie Award.

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Fling
11 (36.7%)

Marry
7 (23.3%)

Kill
12 (40.0%)

Ghost in the Water, by Edward Chitham. Teresa and David find a gravestone from 1860 labeled "Innocent of all Harm" and find that the dead girl's life is mysteriously linked with theirs. Filmed by BBC.

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Fling
18 (54.5%)

Marry
7 (21.2%)

Kill
8 (24.2%)

A Little Lower Than The Angels, by Geraldine McCaughrean. A medieval boy joins a theatre troupe. Whitbread Best Book of the Year.

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Fling
18 (52.9%)

Marry
13 (38.2%)

Kill
3 (8.8%)

Stone Cold, by Robert Swindells. A homeless boy in London gets caught up in a mystery of disappearing street kids. Carnegie Medal

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Fling
15 (46.9%)

Marry
8 (25.0%)

Kill
9 (28.1%)

I have never read anything by any of these authors, and in most cases have only heard of them in the sense that I own one of their books. Anyone familiar with any of them?

Comments

[davidgillon]

None of the names ring a bell, but I mostly don't follow childrens lit. I didn't see any obvious kills in the list. The first one got a fling because, hello, grandchild of miners, the second because it reminded me of one of the stories from my Pitchwars peer group.

[oursin]

Haven't read any of these: once began a non YA historical novel by Geraldine McCaughrean, but gave it up in chapter one when the lord of a C11th English manor was said to consider the local priest Jesuitical. The Society of Jesus was founded in 1539.

I am just that picky.

[davidgillon]

I'd probably have had to go check dates, but yes, that would probably have set alarm bells ringing.

Not very helpful comment via network

[antisoppist]

David Almond is best known for Skellig but I haven't read it.

I remember Robert Swindells as a writer of nuclear war dystopia in the 1980s.

I've read something by Geraldine McCaughrean but can't remember what.

Not heard of the others.

Re: Not very helpful comment via network

[rachelmanija]

Oh! I actually also read Skellig. I know I liked it but I don't recall it that well - it was a long time ago.

[sovay]

I have never read anything by any of these authors, and in most cases have only heard of them in the sense that I own one of their books. Anyone familiar with any of them?

I bounced off David Almond's Skellig (1998) when it came out in the U.S. and I don't know if it was me or the novel; it is a strange angel story, deliberately unnuminous for most of its pagecount, and it is very highly regarded by people who aren't me. I should probably try it again just to see.

Geraldine McCaughrean wrote The Stones Are Hatching (1999), which is one of my favorite folkloric YA novels: it has one strand/character that's way too broad to work for me, but everything and everyone else I love deeply, with evocatively creepy old weirdness and a curiously Lovecraftian slant on World War I that merges seamlessly with stories of the Stoor Worm, corn maidens, nuckelavees, the Washer at the Ford, the Black Dog, merrows, fairies, the Devil's school, the soul-mouse. It gave me my formative Mad Sweeney, who is very much not Neil Gaiman's. For whatever reason the only other book of hers I seem to have read is Peter Pan in Scarlet (2006), the officially commissioned sequel to Barrie's Peter and Wendy (1911). I remember enjoying it—it didn't break the mythos—but I would not call it essential.

I got nothing on the rest of these people.

[rachelmanija]

I liked Skellig, I think largely because of how he wrote the lack of numinousness, but I read it a long time ago.

I ended up really disliking the McCaughrean in this poll, but I may check out The Stones Are Hatching.

[sovay]

I ended up really disliking the McCaughrean in this poll, but I may check out The Stones Are Hatching.

Then I hope it treats you beter.

[liv]

I really really love McCaughrean, and A little lower than the angels is a good example. Robert Swindells writes extremely depressing stuff, mostly famously Brother in the land which is depressing even by the standards of 80s novels about nuclear apocalypses. The others I don't know, but I strongly recommend McCaughrean.

[rachelmanija]

YIKES.

[owlectomy]

I remember everyone in my YA librarians' meeting going WHAT about McCaughrean's The White Darkness winning the Printz award some years back because none of us had heard of it. I liked it a great deal - Antarctic adventure, deaf main character, and still one of my favorite examples of an unreliable narrator who's not intentionally deceptive but just has an understandably skewed perspective. It also stands out for being a very literary thriller, which you don't see much of in YA.

[rachelmanija]

Hmm, interesting. I ended up disliking the book in this poll (which also has an unreliable narrator) but I might like that better.

[owlectomy]

Now I'm really curious to read A Little Lower than the Angels, because it sounds like it's doing some of the same things - which is to say, I fear that you might dislike it for exactly the same reasons! (I don't think it's a smugly unpleasant book, but I do think it's a book that probably falls down if the protagonist comes off as stupid or gullible, rather than eliciting a sympathetic "OH GOD WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS PLEASE HAVE BETTER JUDGMENT.")

[kore]

An Edward Chitham wrote about the Brontes, and a biography of Anne. Don't know if it's the same guy, though.

[movingfinger]

McCaughrean is always interesting, I'd read that right away.

[desperance]

As noted on LJ, repeated here in case you're no longer reading there: David Almond is (a) an old friend of mine, and (b) bloody brilliant despite that. You should read him.

Robert Swindells has had a high rep for a long time, but I never actually read him.

[rachelmanija]

I will! I actually now remember that I read and enjoyed Skellig.

ETA: As long as I crosspost on LJ, I read comments to those entries on LJ. ;)

[larryhammer]

Janni liked Kit's Wilderness enough that she bought other books by David Almond as they came out. Haven't read it myself.

[littlerhymes]

Geraldine McCaughrean is a gift and a treasure. Love just about everything I've ever read by her (and she's written a lot).