At a time when commentators and critics have been referring in these pages to new standards of originality, attainment and general excellence in recent and contemporary Irish (adult) literature, it is a welcome bonus to be able to report that much in our current writing for children and young adults deserves similar praise.
Few who have read the books that have been shortlisted for this year’s Children’s Books Ireland awards can fail to be impressed by their variety, the quality of their writing and illustration, their presentation and, above all perhaps, their refusal to patronise, or preach to, their readers.
If there is a downside to this, it is that there is next to nothing to quibble about with regard to the list, whether by way of what it has included or excluded. Quite simply, the judges this year have done a very good job.
Before mentioning briefly the individual titles on the shortlist it may be useful to look at some of its general features. From just under 70 books submitted by their publishers 10 have been nominated for CBI Book of the Year Awards. Three come from Irish publishers and two are in Irish. Although three authors – Brian Conaghan, Sarah Moore Fitzgerald and Louise O’Neill – are making their first appearance on a CBI awards shortlist, only O’Neill is doing so with a first book, so she alone will be eligible for consideration for the Eilís Dillon First Time award.
The decision about how many titles appear on the shortlist is taken by the judges and can vary from year to year. If this year the total had been 12, as distinct from 10, room might have been found for two books that must be counted among the year’s best, Kim Hood’s Finding a Voice (O’Brien Press) and Susan Maxwell’s Good Red Herring (Little Island). Both of these, incidentally, are debut novels, a fact which, had they been on the shortlist, would have given rise to some competition for O’Neill’s title.
The inclusion on the shortlist of an anthology of short stories, Beyond the Stars, compiled by Sarah Webb (HarperCollins), is an interesting development. It is very attractively produced, living up to its subtitle promise of “adventure, magic and wonder” in its “12 tales” from some of our most highly regarded writers and illustrators, all of them on top form. It must, though, raise tricky questions at the judging stage when set against full-length novels or picture books.
“Tricky questions” of judgment might also arise with one of the Irish-language titles, Gabriel Rosenstock’s Haiku Más é do thoil é! (An Gúm), charmingly illustrated by Brian Fitzgerald. This is, in effect, an information book on the haiku, its history, its form and its content, managing – certainly in its English-language version, which is the one I have read – to be scholarly and entertaining. Its merits, however, are very different from those of the other shortlisted titles.
So, come May 19th, when winners will be announced, who should take home the five CBI awards?
Two of our most innovative picture-book creators are in direct competition for the Honour Award for illustration: Chris Haughton for Shh! We Have a Plan (Walker Books) and Oliver Jeffers for Once Upon an Alphabet (HarperCollins). Both are mischievous, fun-focused books, combining witty text and dynamic artwork. Choosing between them is almost impossible, but on this occasion Haughton gets my vote by the narrowest of margins. Jeffers's book, with its 26 stories, may be the more ambitious undertaking, but there is something irresistible about Haughton's variation on "the best laid schemes of mice and men" theme.
The Eilís Dillon First Time Award will, almost certainly, go to the widely discussed and praised Louise O'Neill's Only Ever Yours (Quercus), already shortlisted for, or winner of, five British awards. It could, in theory, also carry off the CBI Honour Award for fiction, the Book of the Year Award and the judges' Special Award. But, given the quality of all the shortlisted titles, it would be good to feel that these might be shared, somehow, among Conaghan's When Mr Dog Bites (Bloomsbury), Sarah Crossan's Apple and Rain (Bloomsbury), Sarah Moore Fitzgerald's The Apple Tart of Hope (Orion), Áine Ní Ghlinn's Daideo (Cois Life) and Deirdre Sullivan's Primperfect (Little Island). My own preference for "the year's best" – other than Only Ever Yours – is the scurrilously ribald, intermittently hilarious When Mr Dog Bites, described on the cover of one of its editions as "a story about life, death, love, sex and swearing".
That six novels such as these should all be published in the one year and all appear together on an awards shortlist is proof in itself of how far we have travelled (and in a relatively short time) in our notions of what constitutes appropriate and stimulating reading for the adolescent.
As for CBI’s Children’s Choice award, voted for by young readers throughout Ireland (from the titles already shortlisted by the judges), this may depend on the overall age profile of the voters. A younger group could well be attracted to Haughton, an older one to Conaghan. But, this year at least, all those shortlisted are winners, and their books forthcoming in 2015 and 2016 will be awaited with even more anticipation than usual.
Robert Dunbar is a commentator on children’s books
