THE BATH CHILDREN’S NOVEL AWARD 2016 LONGLIST
This year, 715 manuscripts were submitted by unsigned writers across the globe.
From an incredibly strong field, 26 novels have been longlisted, with a range of settings from 19th century Castile to future wintry worlds via coastal Devon, Texan creeks and a sewage tunnel beneath Buckingham Palace. Within middle grade, humour, mystery and adventure proved especially competitive and our final fourteen novels for younger children include: animal automatons, ghost detectives and a dinner lady who serves up bugs. Young adult submissions were dominated by fantasy, romance, survival, realistic and thrillers, with WW2 girl spies, climate refugees and south London beatboxers amongst the cast of characters in the final twelve books for teens.
For the next stage of the competition, our panel of junior judges, aged from seven to seventeen, will be reading the full manuscripts of the 26 longlisted novels. As all our judges read “blind” we’ll be keeping the longlisted writers’ identities under wraps until the winner, as chosen by JULIA CHURCHILL, is announced in January 2017.
In the meantime, huge congratulations to the writers of these 26 standout titles:
| Bad Blood |
| Billy and Chester: Partners in Grime |
| Billy Grimshaw and the Mystery of the Missing Humans |
| Blackout |
| Cogs of Castile |
| Echo of Light |
| Emily Arden and the Letter That Lost the War |
| Master Alabaster’s School for Illusionaery |
| Phil Glum and the Imagination Palace |
| Potkin & Stubbs (Deceased) |
| Secret History |
| Shattered |
| Strike |
| Take Flight |
| Tell Me, Cody, Where’d You Go? |
| The Book of Magnificent Things |
| The Curse of the Naseby Horses |
| The Girl in the Claroscope |
| The Girl Who Tangled Time |
| The Legend of the Star Arrow |
| The Magpie Garden |
| The Memory Gate |
| The Waiting Room |
| Trev |
| Violet Bloomfield and the Despicable Dinner Lady |
| Zachary No One and the Zoo |
The Bath Novel Award & Bath Children’s Novel Award are sponsored by Cornerstones Literary Consultancy
