Media Release

The Inkys – Teen Choice Book Awards Long-list Announced

A long-list of 20 youth literature books in the running for the second annual Inky Awards were announced at the State Library of Victoria today.

The Inkys are Australia’s only teen choice book awards, reflecting what teenagers want to read rather than what they are told to read.

The Inky Awards were created by the State Library of Victoria’s Centre for Youth Literature to encourage reading for pleasure amongst teenagers.
 
The long-list of ten Australian books and ten international books has been selected by the Centre for Youth Literature. This long-list is then read by a panel of six young judges, who will whittle the list down to six books (three Australian, three International). Then, on 12 September, voting opens to teen readers on the insideadog website. The books with the most votes win.

There are two awards:

• the Golden Inky for an Australian book
• the Silver Inky for an International book.

The winner of the Golden Inkywill receive a trophy and $2000 in prize money. The winner of the Silver Inky will receive a trophy.

This year a new award, the Inkys Creative Reading Prize, will be awarded to a reader who develops the best creative response to a book on the Inkys long-list. The response can come in any form be it short-stories, songs, poems or video – anything goes.

The winners of the Golden and Sliver Inkys and Creative Reading Prize will be announced at the State Library of Victoria, Thursday 6 November 2008.

Note to editors

insideadog.com.au is Australia’s best-loved website on books and reading for young people. Featuring competitions, reviews, a forum, excerpts from new titles, downloads and a monthly writer in residence, insideadog has a loyal and enthusiastic following – receiving over 500,000 visits in the last year. Insideadog is a project of the Centre for Youth Literature, State Library of Victoria, and is proudly supported by the Copyright Agency Limited and The Age.

Golden Inky (Australian books)

• The Indigo Girls
  By Penni Russon
  Allen & Unwin
  
• Tales from Outer Suburbia
  By Shaun Tan
  Allen & Unwin
  
• Finding Darcy
  By Sue Lawson
  black dog books
  
• Our Little Secret
  By Allayne Webster
  Omnibus
  
• Joel & Cat Set the Story Straight
  By Nick Earls & Rebecca Sparrow
  Penguin
  
• Michael Sweeney’s Method
  BySean Condon
  Penguin
  
• Kill the Possum
  By James Moloney
  Penguin
  
• Town
  James Roy
  UQP
  
• Game as Ned
  By Tim Pegler
  HarperCollins
  
• A Brief History of Montmaray
  By Michelle Cooper
  Random House

Silver Inky (International books)

• Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
  By Gabrielle Zevin
  Allen&Unwin
  
• Boy Toy
  By Barry Lyga
  Pan Macmillan
  
• Before I Die
  By Jenny Downham
  Random House
  
• Hero
  By Perry Moore
  Random House
  
• The Knife of Never Letting Go
  By Patrick Ness
  Walker
  
• Snakehead
  By Anthony Horowitz
  Walker
  
• Life As We Knew It
  By Susan Beth Pfeffer
  Scholastic
  
• Genesis
  By Bernard Beckett
  Text
  
• Broken Soup
  By Jenny Valentine
  HarperCollins
  
• Extras
  By Scott Westerfeld
  Simon & Schuster

The judges

The 2008 Judges are:

• Simmone Howell, author of Notes from the Teenage Underground and winner of the 2007 Golden Inky
• Andrew Finegan, librarian and comedian, NT
• Gabriella, 16, from Adelaide
• Aidan, 15, from Queensland
• Luke, 14, from Wangaratta
• Sarah, 18, from NSW.

Media inquiries

Matthew van Hasselt
Media relations coordinator, State Library of Victoria
Ph: 03 8664 7263
Email: mvanhasselt@slv.vic.gov.au