The winners of the 2017 Inky Awards for young adult literature were announced today by The Centre for Youth Literature at State Library Victoria.
The Inky Awards were established in 2007 as Australia’s national teen choice awards for young adult literature.
2017 Gold Inky Winner
Cath Crowley
Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley (Pan Macmillan Australia)
The Gold Inky is awarded each year to an Australian author and includes $2,000 prize money.
Ms Crawley said, “I’m thrilled that Words in Deep Blue has won the 2017 Gold Inky. To receive an award for young adult fiction as decided by young adults is an incredible honour. Words in Deep Blue is about the importance of books, and the ways stories connect us – so receiving the award is wonderful proof that words matter, that stories matter.”
2017 Silver Inky Award
Alice Oseman
Radio Silence by Alice Oseman (Harper Collins Australia)
The Silver Inky is awarded each year to an international author.
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 Manager , Rebeca Henson said, “The Inky Awards are important because not only do they celebrate young adult books and writers, they also honour the views of young readers, with teens involved at each stage of the selection process. Once again, the teen reading community have done themselves proud in their choice of the 2017 Inky Award winners.”
About Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley
From the publisher:
Second-hand bookshops are full of mysteries.
This is a love story. It’s the story of Howling Books, where readers write letters to strangers, to lovers, to poets, to words. It’s the story of Henry Jones and Rachel Sweetie. They were best friends once, before Rachel moved to the sea.
Now, she’s back, working at the bookstore, grieving for her brother Cal. She’s looking for the future in the books people love, and the words that they leave behind.
Sometimes you need the poets.
About Radio Silence by Alice Oseman
From the publisher:
What if everything you set yourself up to be was wrong?
Frances has always been a study machine with one goal, elite university. Nothing will stand in her way; not friends, not a guilty secret – not even the person she is on the inside. But when Frances meets Aled, the shy genius behind her favourite podcast, she discovers a new freedom. He unlocks the door to Real Frances and for the first time she experiences true friendship, unafraid to be herself. Then the podcast goes viral and the fragile trust between them is broken.
Caught between who she was and who she longs to be, Frances’ dreams come crashing down. Suffocating with guilt, she knows that she has to confront her past…
A YA coming of age read that tackles issues of identity, the pressure to succeed, diversity and freedom to choose, Radio Silence is a tour de force by the most exciting writer of her generation.
