Children's Books Ireland Bisto Awards: The Children's Books Ireland Bisto Awards will be announced on Wednesday. Mary Shine Thompson assesses the field and predicts the winners.
The Children's Books Ireland (CBI) Bisto Awards are our Children's Whitbread, more lucrative and longer established than the Dublin Airport Authority and the Reading Association of Ireland awards. The Bisto is now in its 16th year, and its fund has been increased to a generous €15,000: €6,000 for the book of the year; a €3,000 Eilís Dillon Award for best book by a first-time children's author; and three €2,000 merit awards. But the Bisto's importance goes well beyond its substantial monetary value.
Publication no longer guarantees a book readers - if, indeed, it ever did. While non- fiction sales boom, here and elsewhere, there is a global decline in fiction reading. As competition intensifies, publishers gravitate towards "promotable" authors: media- friendliness has become almost as important as literary merit.
The literary prize, however, still generates debate, criticism - and sales. And since fiction is still the mainstay of the awards business, it has most to gain. This year's Bisto shortlist, comprising 10 authors and/or illustrators born or resident in Ireland, contains only fiction. There's one Irish-language book, Bríona ag Brionglóideach, by Dairíne Ní Dhonnchú, illustrated by Maria Murray and published by An Gúm. Three nominations are eligible for the Eilís Dillon Award: Kevin Kiely's A Horse Called El Dorado (O'Brien Press); Snakes' Elbows (Deirdre Madden, Orchard Books); and Eileen O'Hely's Penny the Pencil (illustrated by Nicky Phelan, Mercier Press). Two are picture books, dominated by pictures rather than print: Fancy That! (written by Gillian Lobel, illustrated by Adrienne Geoghegan, published by Frances Lincoln) and Oliver Jeffers's Lost and Found (Harper Collins).
Sixty books qualified for consideration, significantly fewer than in previous years. Not long ago, there were more than a hundred. It would be a real pity - not to say a serious loss - if the number of eligible books were to be reduced further. Local writers can evoke the familiar in ways that may not always attract a global readership but that nonetheless may be provocative and richly rewarding.
Awards, by acknowledging Irish writers, and by implication some Irish publishers also, perform crucial functions. So it is gratifying to see that more than half this shortlist comes from publishers in Ireland, if Puffin/Penguin (Penguin now has a Dublin office) can be counted as such.
The judges have wisely chosen books for children of all ages and from all backgrounds. Small fry will warm to Jeffers's and Lobel and Geoghegan's picture books, for which the production standards are excellent. Lost and Found lyrically conveys - through silences, suggestion and subtle watercolours - the deepening bond between a boy and a penguin. Fancy That! dances over double-page spreads with vibrant equatorial colour, combining suspense, repetition and surprise.
Younger, confident readers will love the warmth of Madden's Snakes' Elbows and John Quinn's Bill and Fred? (O'Brien Press). Madden tells a witty, satirical tale of warring millionaires, one a decent, About a Boy-ish recluse, the other grasping and flashy.
Self-reliance and good luck save two old ladies, Bill and Fred, from penury in Quinn's delightful big-house story. Those who struggle to read will identify with Kiely's Pepe Carroll in his atmospheric A Horse Called El Dorado. Pepe flees war-torn Colombia and, overcoming his reading problems, becomes a jockey in Ireland.
O'Hely's Penny the Pencil recounts the adventures of kindly Penny, bullied out of Ralph's pencil-box, while Bríona ag Brionglóideach is a school text, with controlled vocabulary, repetition and witty artwork.
CERTAIN CHILDREN'S BOOKS may be judged according to standard adult criteria, such as complexity of character, sophistication of plot, verisimilitude - and, in the case of fantasy, the persuasive evocation of alternative worlds. In this broad category are Oisín McGann's Under Fragile Stone: The Archisan Tales (O'Brien Press), Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl: the Opal Deception (Puffin) and Kate Thompson's The New Policeman (Bodley Head). All are accomplished, shape-changing fantasies that transport readers to credible otherworlds; Colfer's to a high-tech, pre-teen Bond universe, McGann's to epic high fantasy, Thompson's to a threatened fairyland that mirrors the real world.
In The Opal Deception, Artemis's fourth adventure - which is as inventive, adroit and hilarious as its predecessors - the hero outwits the evil pixie, Opal. The book is not just digital fun and games. The appeal lies in its hint at a lyrical heart concealed beneath Artemis's crass exterior; in the Dickensian naming (Mulch Diggums); and in the depth of feeling kept firmly buttoned.
In the second Archisan volume, McGann displays his ability to develop simultaneously numerous narrative strands, as two shape-changing teenagers search for parents trapped underground in enemy territory. This saga balances the timeless thrill of battle and the lure of the strange with a concern for ecology.
Thompson's mantelpiece must be sagging under The New Policeman's awards. Already it has won the Dublin Airport Authority, Guardian and Whitbread prizes. One can see why: its narrative ease and accomplishment are masterly. Teenage fiddler JJ journeys from present-day Kinvara to Tír na nÓg in search of time, which is something his mother never has enough of. In the process he prevents the destruction of the otherworld and learns about music's link to it. This is a wonderful celebration of art, imagination and feckless dreaming, told with serious lightness and street cred.
The judges have shortlisted fine, exciting books. Thompson (no relation!) must be in line to win an unprecedented fourth Bisto top award, but Colfer and Jeffers are serious challengers. McGann should make the merit list, and Madden and Kiely are likely to vie for the Eilís Dillon award. Whether Madden's narrative control will win over Kiely's command of atmosphere remains to be seen.
- The awards will be announced on Wednesday in the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Dublin
- Mary Shine Thompson is research co-ordinator and lecturer at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra. Her recent publications include The Selected Plays of Austin Clarke (Colin Smythe) and Treasure Islands: Studies in Children's Literature, co-edited by C Keenan (Four Courts)