Hallowe'en tale wins teenage book prize

A gothic tale about vampire hunters has become the perfect Hallowe'en winner of the Booktrust Teenage Prize 2007, it was announced today.
Marcus Sedgwick won the prize with his sinister story, My Swordhand is Singing, about a woodcutter and his son who fight the legendary undead in the forests of seventeenth-century Romania.

Beating competition from Meg Rosoff with her novel Just in Case and Mal Peet with The Penalty, Sedgwick impressed judges with his "thrilling and menacing story", Booktrust said.

Author Anthony McGowan, judge and winner of last year's prize, said: “The prize turned up some stunning novels. But one stood out for its utterly gripping narrative, its brilliantly created atmosphere of terror and suspense, and the subtle poetry of its language.

"My Swordhand is Singing hooks the reader from the opening sentence, and, like the Gypsy music at its core, resonates still in the imagination long after the last note is sounded.”

The prize, established in 2003, is the only national award for teenage fiction and was judged by McGowan, Angela Wilkinson, a librarian, the Times journalist Tom Gatti and six teenagers.
Sedgwick collected his trophy and £2,500 prize-money at a ceremony today. In 2001 he won the Branford Boase award for his novel Floodland and the following year was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the Blue Peter Book Award for The Dark House.
Previous winners include Mark Haddon for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Anne Cassidy for Looking for JJ and Sarah Singleton for Century.

For more details about the prize visit http://www.bookheads.org.uk/ or http://www.bookedup.org.uk/