CLIP Carnegie 2013 Award Shortlist Announced

The biggest annual teen fiction award of pure quality is back!
The CLIP Carnegie and Greenaway Association have today announced their Carnegie Award shortlist for the 2013 Awards. As always, it's packed with up-and-coming British authors who possess an inert talent for innovating in the realms of teen fiction, providing us with some of the most memorable reads of the past year. I've read just one of these texts so far, but you can expect more reviews of these budding novels as the Spring and Summer months progress. Here's the shortlist:

THE WEIGHT OF WATER (4.5/5)- Life is lonely for Kasienska. At home her mother's heart is breaking and at school, friends are scarce. But when someone special swims into her life, Kasienska learns that there might be more than one way for her to stay afloat. (Our Thoughts: A thoroughly compelling read with one of the most innovative formats of storytelling in any book so far this decade!)
A GREYHOUND OF A GIRL- Mary O'Hara is the youngest of four generations of strong Irish women. Her great-grandmother Tansey is the feistiest of them all- and she's dead. But then Tansey's ghost arrives with a very special mission, to take a midnight road trip back to the past...
MAGGOT MOON- A ruthless regime is determined to beat its enemies in a race to the moon. But when his best friend Hector is suddenly taken away, it is up to unlikely hero Standish, his grandfather and a small bands of rebels to confront and defeat the ever-present oppressive forces of the Motherland.
IN DARKNESS- In the aftermath of the Haitan earthquake, a teenage boy is terrified beneath the rubble of a ruined hospital. His fires burn so bright he forms a link with a Haitian rebel who led the slave revolt two centuries ago. Together they must face their own darkness and find the strength to survive.
WONDER- Born with a terrible facial abnormality, ten year old Augie Pullman is being sent to a real school, exposing him to the stares and cruelty of the outside world- and he's dreading it. Wonder follows Auggie's journey through his first year at Beecher Prep.
MIDWINTERBLOOD- A story that spans hundreds of years, Eric and Merle have loved and lost one another and have been searching for each other ever since. There are seven different interweaving stories, as they come close to finding each other before facing the ultimate sacrifice.
A BOY AND A BEAR IN A BOAT- A boy and a bear go to sea, equipped with only a suitcase, a comic book and a ukulele. But their boat encounters 'unforeseeable anomalies' from turbulent stormy seas and a terrifying sea monster to the rank remains of The Very Last Sandwich!
CODE NAME VERITY- A wartime Scottish aristocrat pilot and a Manchester lass SO executive must face a vital mission that goes wrong, forcing one of them tobe captured by the Gestapo. Now a prisoner of war, Verity must write her own account of her tale for her captors...

The Carnegie 2013 Award winner will be announced on Wednesday June 19th.