Guest Award CBI Bisto Award Leabhar-Ghradaim
About the Award
The CBI Bisto Award Leabhar-Ghradaim are the leading annual Children's Book Awards in Ireland. Now in their 18th year, the awards have been sponsored since their inception by Bisto (Premier Foods). The Awards are made annually by Children's Books Ireland to authors and illustrators born or resident in Ireland.
There are a total of five awards. CBI Bisto Book of the Year Award Prize: €10,000 prize and a perpetual trophy and framed certificate: CBI Bisto Honour Awards Prize: Three Honour (previously Merit) Awards share a prize fund of €6,000 and each prize winner receives a framed certificate. The Eilís Dillon Award (awarded to a first time writer for children) Prize: €3,000 prize, a trophy + framed certificate.
We maintain a dedicated CBI Bisto award page at Literary Awards UK with historic winners etc. Official site link above.
2009 Winners and Shortlists
Bisto Book of the Year Award 2009
Siobhan Dowd for Bog Child
The story of Fergus’ journey of self-discovery as he struggles to make sense of his personal, familial, and societal situation, as well as the voice of a bog child that comes to him in his dreams. To journey through this
layered narrative is to be confronted with not only the frailty of life but also the redemptive qualities of love: unsettling yet optimistic, this is radiant prose that sings of the pain and beauty of the human condition.
Digging for peat in the mountain with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds the body of a child, and it looks like she's been murdered. As Fergus tries to make sense of the mad world around him - his brother on hunger-strike in prison, his growing feelings for Cora, his parents arguing over the Troubles, and him in it up to the neck, blackmailed into acting as courier to God knows what, a little voice comes to him in his dreams, and the mystery of the bog child unfurls. "Bog Child" is an astonishing novel exploring the sacrifices made in the name of peace, and the unflinching strength of the human spirit.
| Publisher: | Definitions |
| ISBN: | 1862305919 |
About the Author
Siobhan Dowd lived in Oxford with her husband, Geoff, before tragically dying from cancer in August 2007, aged 47. She was both an extraordinary writer and an extraordinary person, and leaves two unpublished novels, the first being Bog Child. Siobhan's first novel, A Swift Pure Cry won the Branford Boase Award and the Eilis Dillon Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and Booktrust Teenage Prize. Her second novel, The London Eye Mystery, won the 2007 NASEN & TES Special Educational Needs Children's Book Award.
Eilis Dillon Award for a first children's book
Anila's Journey by Mary Finn 
A story of a half-Indian, half-Irish girl whose journey down the Ganges is also a journey into her past. Sensitively told in gracefully lyrical prose, this meticulously researched coming-of-age novel vividly creates a sense of place and history in order to detail the life and relationships of its central character
An advert in the "Calcutta Gazette" is looking for an apprentice draughtsman to accompany a scholar on an expedition to record avian life in Bengal. How can Anila Tandy, left to fend for herself in a city of rogues, dare to apply for a position that is clearly not meant for her? But the talented "Bird Girl of Calcutta" has never shrunk from a challenge. And perhaps this voyage up the Ganges might be just the thing to equip Anila in her search for her father, missing for years and presumed dead.
| Publisher: | Walker Books Ltd |
| ISBN: | 1406306592 |
About the Author
Mary Finn worked for years as a magazine journalist with Radio Telefis Eireann, the Irish broadcasting service. She lives in Dublin with her son and works as a freelance writer. Anila's Journey is her debut novel and was inspired by an original 18th century portrait which hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland (and now graces the front cover), as well as a lifelong fascination with India.
Published by Walker Books
ISBN: 9781406306590 (PBK)
Judges Special Recognition Award
Highway Robbery by Kate Thompson
Chosen for special recognition by the judges as an example of a exceptional stand alone novel for emerging readers.
A story told by a young beggar boy who is asked to look after a horse for a mysterious man. Atmospheric and evocative, this deceivingly slight tale is a well measured intertextual metanarrative built around a clever conceit. The creation of a natural storyteller, this aesthetically pleasing production will appeal – particularly – to newly confident reade
rs.
'Hold the mare for me, lad. And when I come back I'll give you a golden guinea.' It's more money than the street urchin has ever dreamt of. But who is the rider, and why is there so much interest in his big black horse? And will the boy ever see the money he has been promised? There's highway robbery in the air, but it isn't always entirely clear just who is trying to rob who.
About the Author
Kate Thompson (right) is one of the most exciting authors writing for young people today for she is a born storyteller, highly original and thought provoking in her ideas. She has travelled widely in the USA and India and studied law in London. After living in County Clare, she moved to Kinvara in County Galway and it was there that she discovered her passion for playing the fiddle. She is now an accomplished player and also has a great interest in restoring instruments. Kate is the only author to win the Children's Books Ireland Bisto Book of the Year award four times - in 2002 for The Beguilers, in 2003 for The Alchemist's Apprentice, in 2004 for Annan Water and in 2006 for The New Policeman. The New Policeman also won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize 2005, the Whitbread Book Award Children's category 2005, the Children's Book of the Year in the Irish Book Awards in March 2006 and has been longlisted for the Carnegie Medal.
| Publisher: | Bodley Head Children's Books |
| ISBN: | 0370329570 |
| EAN: | 9780370329574 |
| Dimensions: | 18.0 x 135.0 x 1.0 centimeters |
Bisto Honour Award for Illustration
Oliver Jeffers for The Great Paper Caper
The story of its animal characters’ investigation into the gradual disappearance of their forest home. Intelligently absurd, every part of this stylish literary work, from its peritextual elements to its deceptively simple verbal and visual texts, challenges and entertains the reader. This is the work of an author who is in complete command of the picture book format. 
An exciting picture book, featuring brand new characters from highly-regarded, best-selling, multi-award-winning talent, Oliver Jeffers. When life in the forest begins to change; when trees mysteriously lose their branches, when whole tree trunks start to disappear, when homes are lost, the only course of action for the forest dwellers is to begin a full scale investigation. Alibis must be proved, clues must be sought but even so, blame is never far from anyone's thoughts. Who is the perpetrator of this heinous crime? Will justice be done?
About the Author
Oliver Jeffers (right)is a fresh new talent in picture books. He graduated from The University of Ulster in 2001 with First Class honours and has since exhibited his paintings around the world. His outstanding talent has already been recognised by several high-profile awards, including the Nestle Children's Book Prize Gold Award, the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award and the Irish Children's Book of the Year.
We maintain a dedicated CBI Bisto award page at Literary Awards UK with historic winners etc. Official site link above.
