Angus Book Award 2009
Review Competition
The competition was judged by Chris Ferguson, Deputy Editor of The Courier.
A high standard of work across the board and I was impressed by the command of English in all entries. Maybe one or two potential journalists in there! It came down to two -- Fiona Coyne and Nicola Petrie. Both pupils attempted to engage readers from the off by getting straight into a description of the book. Both were concise and I'd have been happy to nominate either. However, Fiona edged it because of her descriptive writing and flowing style.
Winner
Fiona Coyne, Monifieth High School - What I Was
'What I Was' by Meg Rosoff is an exciting and adventurous novel. This story is a story of love and passion. This heart warming story is centered on two friends Hillary and Finn, who through time develop a strong bond. Hillary is a school boy who is trapped in a boarding school where he really doesn't want to be in and Finn is a care free person who nobody knows exists. Hillary goes to see Finn everyday and becomes some what obsessed with him as it gives him freedom from school life which he hates.
Hillary is a typical teenage boy who lives at St Oswald's Boarding school. He is picked on by some boys and liked by others but he wants to be free like Finn.
On the other hand Finn is a carefree person who lives in a hut on the beach. There are no records of his existence letting him have the freedom that Hillary has always wanted. Finn is like a closed book not giving too much away.
The themes of What I Was are love confusion and the difficulties of falling in love. When Hillary starts to like Finn as more than a friend he is very confused by his feelings as he has never felt like this before.
What I Was is set mainly in Finns beach house which from the lovely descriptions in the book is a beautiful place with no rules and nobody to tell you what to do.
This brilliant novel captures the feelings of love and adventure very well. Meg Rosoff is a very skilled writer and I would definitely read another one of her books.
Runner Up
Nicola Petrie, Forfar Academy - Crash
"Crash" is an action-packed novel written by J.A. Henderson about a teenage boy, named Bobby Berlin, who's Dad looses his memory completely when they witness an accident on the fourth railway bridge. Unfortunately for Bobby, his father is left thinking that he is Dodd Pollen, a 14 year old boy from Dundee, who is desperate to get back to his hometown. So Bobby's Dad runs away leaving Bobby and his friend Mary to go after him which ends up getting the three of them in the middle of a national crisis.
Although the main part of the plot was to do with finding out what the link between Dodd Pollen and Gordon Berlin (Bobby's Dad) was, there was also an ecological edge to the story which is an issue that is becoming more publicly aware these days and I think the link between that was quite clever of Henderson. I was pleasantly surprised when I read this book as I didn't really think it would appeal to me very much. The actual idea of the story was very original and I have never read a book with as much twists and turns in it. I also feel that since it was set in Scotland and most of the events took place in Dundee that I could relate to it more therefore making the book altogether more realistic and personal to me.
I did have my doubts at the start because I found the way the it jumped from each characters point of view quite confusing but as I read on and the plot started to unfold "Crash" became a book that I was unable to put down.