Guardian Young Critics Winners!
This is a big congratulations to a group of children that I recently worked with writing book reviews. We entered our reviews into the Guardian Young Critics Competition and guess what, we won! The kids are very excited and so they should be, the first prize is a trip to the Guardian newsroom, having a go at putting together the news for the following day.
Here are three of their splendid entries:
Momentum by Saci Lloyd
Saci Lloyd’s action packed futuristic novel, Momentum, features Hunter Nash, a serious teenage boy and also a member of the Jee-Uh (A global social network portal). Uma is the total opposite, a calm and collected adolescent. She is an Outsider from a group of people who smuggle their secrets in the dark depths of the internet. Unexpectedly meet and are bound together by chance and pure luck.
One day, whilst practicing Base Jumping off an abandoned slum building, Hunter catches sight of a boy frantically sprinting through the crumbling tower block opposite. Swiftly, making a last attempt to escape from the four Cossack soldiers chasing him, the boy jumps off the building. The soldiers shoot. Crimson splattered circles appear across the boy’s chest and he plummets towards his death. This is also the very spot where Uma first notices Hunter. Uma eventually tracks down hunter and is forced to trust him the secrets of The Outsiders and in some cases, her life. This creates a strange and rather secretive friendship.
Realistic and believable, the two characters Saci Lloyd has created always stay true emotionally, with feelings, that whoever the reader, he or she can always relate to. This gives the book that bit of extra magic. For me, even though the opening is slightly confusing, the story quickly unravels, revealing hints and secrets about the mysterious Outsiders world.
Small Change For Stuart by Lisa Evans
Lisa Evans’ ‘Small Change For Stuart’ is a well written story of a ten year old boy who moves to a town called Beeton. He soon hears tales of his great uncle, the apparently superb magician, Tony Horten, who disappeared years previously. Stuart, curious in many ways about his great uncles’ disappearance, picks up the search and finds a series of clues leading to Tony Horten’s magic workshop.
Mysterious and witty, this book, wherever you are in it, makes you want to read on. As the events unfolded my curiosity increased. The way everything Stuart does, thinks and feels is conveyed is brilliant. At no point do the standards relax and at no point am I let down. When I was finished, I was sad for it to be over but glad to have read it.
Twilight Robbery by Frances Hardinge
Mosca lives with her goose Saracen in the small sheep-farming town of Grabely, where she reads for money, for not many of the population can read. While in the streets reading, Mosca is asked by a stranger, Rabilan Skellow, to be his scribe. The money is far too tempting, and she agrees. She is taken to Skellow’s house and kept prisoner, but manages to escape and runs to the nearest village where she meets up with an old friend, the conman Eponymous Clent who has just escaped from prison. On the run from Skellow and the debtors’ prison, Clent and Mosca walk over the hills to try and find a better place to live . . .
. . . Twilight Robbery mixes the genres of mystery, historical fiction, and fantasy in an amazing recipe for an incredible book. The book is set in the past, but it gives an understanding of the point of view of people who are discriminated against – the people of the night – which is still important today.
Well done gang!
