Little Rebels by Anne Booth

Happy Easter everyone!

I imagine that not many people will be reading this post today, but I just thought I'd share that my last novel 'Across the Divide' has been shortlisted for 'The Little Rebels Award' for 2019.

I am really proud, and have gone and bought all the other shortlisted books (I did have two of them already). I think I may donate them to a local school after I have read them and after the results on the 10th July, but I may also keep them, as I would love to end up teaching Children's Literature and Children's Creative writing, and already I am loving the ones I have read.

Here is the information on the award:

https://littlerebels.org/2019/04/18/the-2019-little-rebels-award-shortlist-is-here/

And information about the books, including mine:

https://littlerebels.org/2019-shortlist/

One of the lovely things about this is the opportunity to read other books but also to meet the other writers. One of them in particular, Nadine Kaadan, is someone I will be really looking forward to seeing. I can't remember if we met in 2015 or 2016, when we were asked to talk about our books for a BBC Scotland interview in London. Nadine was actually talking about the book which is shortlisted - it hadn't been translated by then - which is called 'Tomorrow', as well as another lovely book called 'The Jasmine Sneeze'.

I had never been interviewed about a book before, or been in a proper BBC radio studio - and I was a bit worried about this - but I was even more panicked about meeting Nadine. I thought she was a Syrian refugee, and even though I wrote 'Refuge', illustrated by the amazing Sam Usher, precisely to draw attention to the refugee crisis, I felt terribly shy about meeting a real-life refugee - I couldn't bear to think about what they had been through and was worried about saying something crass or insensitive. (NB Nadine has contacted me since I wrote this post and has explained to me that actually, because she has dual French/Syrian citizenship, she is not actually a refugee.)

I met Nadine and her husband, and they were so, so lovely. They insisted on taking me out for a lunch after the interview and we had such a lovely time. I have kept facebook friends with Nadine, and I can't wait to meet her again on July 10th.


So, although I would LOVE for 'Across the Divide' to win this award, (I  have  been short-listed for quite a few but have never won!) I also feel that being shortlisted for this award has reminded me that being a children's writer is a prize in itself - we are all involved in doing something we love and which is very worthwhile, there are so many wonderful books out there, and we can meet amazing people like Nadine in the course of doing our work.