Carnegie Short-list 2016

So…the results have been announced.

The short-listed titles are:

  • Sarah Crossan – ‘One’
  • Francis Hardinge – ‘The Lie Tree’
  • Nick Lake – ‘There Will Be Lies”
  • Patrick Ness – ‘The Rest of Us Just Live Here’
  • Kate Saunders – ‘Five Children on the Western Front’
  • Marcus Sedgwick – ‘The Ghosts of Heaven’
  • Robin Talley – ‘Lies We Tell Ourselves’
  • Jenny Valentine ‘ ‘Fire Colour One’

An interesting selection, and definitely something for everyone on this list. Given the success of ‘The Lie Tree’ in the Costa Awards earlier this year, I’ll be interested to see how this fares in the process.

I have to admit to finding one or two of the novels on this list less interesting than others (it’s always the way), and I’m disappointed that one or two of my favourites from the long-list didn’t make it on here. Though you’ll find individual reviews for each book on my site, I think that Sarah Crossan’s touching verse about conjoined twins, Francis Hardinge’s bold exploration of attitudes to truth and women in science and Nick Lake’s intriguing exploration of identity are likely to be the ones battling it out. Our Shadowing group was totally wrong with the 2015 winner, so we’ll have to wait and see this year…