I have decided to look back at the list of books I have read this year and try to choose my favourite, which will be awarded the highly sought after 2008 Golden BookBoy Award.
You might think this is a simple process, but it is not. Firstly, this year goes back a long way. Almost 52 weeks in fact. I have not written about every book I read and my memory is not what it used to be. So I will be relying somewhat by my gut reaction telling me how much I remember liking a book.
Second, it usually makes sense for literary awards to be limited to books published this year and while I have read a number of 2008 publications, throughout the course of the year I have also read a whole bunch that were published in years gone by. A lot from 2007 for example. 2006 gets a mention too. Even 2003. You get the point.
So in my infinite wisdom (and at the suggestion of Mrs BookBoy) I have decided to award the Golden BookBoy to a book published this year, and a Silver BookBoy to a book published before this year.
However, this fails to take into account the fact that I will then be comparing books written for kids with books written for teens (I am choosing to ignore the 2 or 3 grown up books I have read this year). So on third thoughts, I will award two Golden BookBoys and two Silver BookBoys – one each for junior and teen books. So, four awards in total. Sometimes a book could easily fit in either junior or teen, and sometimes it’s hard to decide, so I’ve tended to categorise them based on where they are shelved in my library. If you disagree, too bad.
So here’s how the judging process will work, I will pop over to my LibraryThing catalogue and look through the list of books tagged “read2008″ (join with me by clicking here, 55! not bad , eh?), as I skim the list, I will jot down the titles that I remember really really liking. These titles will be divided into the four categories and will form the shortlists.
As you will see when you read on, the teen lists are longer than the junior lists. This is simply because I tend to read more teen books than junior and I guess not so many of the junior books I read really jumped out as me this year. And that is what I am looking for as a (the) judge – books that jump out and grab me hard enough to be remembered in December.
So without further ado, I present to you the shortlists for this years Golden and Silver BookBoy awards.
Silver BookBoy, Junior
- Amelia Dee and the peacock lamp, by Odo Hirsch
- The invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick
Golden BookBoy, Junior
- Rhyming boy: a novel, by Steven Herrick
- Airman, by Eoin Colfer
Silver BookBoy, Teen
- Before I die, by Jenny Downham
- Black water, by David Metzenthen
- Cold Skin, by Steven Herrick
- Marty’s shadow, by John Heffernan
- Town, by James Roy
Golden BookBoy, Teen
- King Dork, by Frank Portman
- Lamplighter (Monster blood tattoo, book 2), by D. M. Cornish
- Naomi and Ely’s no kiss list, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
- Skin hunger (A resurrection of magic, book 1), by Kathleen Duey
- Tales from outer suburbia, by Shaun Tan
Stay tuned. The winners will be announced in the next few days, and the book I’m reading now is looking quite good, so maybe there’ll be a late entry…
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