Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Gold Inky winners Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

The Centre for Youth Literature at State Library Victoria has announced the winners the 2016 Inky Awards for young adult literature today, celebrating a decade of the national teen choice prize.

The Inky Awards were established in 2007 as Australia’s first, and still only, national teen choice awards for young adult literature.

Illuminae_Kaufman&Kristoff

Illuminae by Kaufman&Kristoff

2016 Gold Inky winner

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (Allen & Unwin)

The Gold Inky is awarded each year to an Australian author and includes $2,000 prize money.

Ms Kaufman and Mr Kristoff said: “We’re so incredibly honoured to win an award like this — it’s impossible to overstate the importance of awards like the Inkys that are for teens and by teens. We’re so proud to be representing Aussie YA and adding the first science fiction title to an amazing list of past winners.”

I'll Give You the Sun by Nelson

I’ll Give You the Sun by Nelson

2016 Silver Inky winner

I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson (USA) (Walker Books Australia)

The Silver Inky is awarded each year to an international author. There is no cash prize.

The Inky Awards ask readers aged 12-20 to vote for their favourite books from a shortlist selected by a panel of teen judges from around Australia. Voting is conducted online through the State Library’s youth literature website insideadog.com.au and the shortlisted authors who receive the most votes win.

Centre for Youth Literature Program Coordinator Adele Walsh said the Inky Awards, now in their tenth year,  encouraged teens to read for pleasure and share that passion with their peers.

“The Inky Awards are special in that they highlight the most important audience of young adult fiction – teens! Young adult readers are passionate, discerning and thoughtful and it is wonderful to see these qualities reflected in this year’s winners.”

 

About Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Illuminae is co-authored by Melbourne based writers, Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff.  Last year the film was optioned by Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment.

The year is 2575, and two rival mega-corporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, exes Kady and Ezra – who are barely even talking to each other – are forced to fight their way onto the evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But the warship is the least of their problems. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results. The fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what the hell is going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.

Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth and the courage of everyday heroes.

 

About  I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson

I’ll Give You the Sun is the third novel by American novelist, Jandy Nelson. Nelson was the winner of the 2015 Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, the most prestigious youth literature award in the world.

Jude and her twin Noah were incredibly close – until a tragedy drove them apart, and now they are barely speaking. Then Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy as well as a captivating new mentor, both of whom may just need her as much as she needs them. What the twins don’t realize is that each of them has only half the story and if they can just find their way back to one another, they have a chance to remake their world.

Find out more about the Inky Awards here.

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