This year's contenders include a dystopian adventure, a story about grief and one boy's attempt to save the galaxy
E Lockhart's We Were Liars has made it on to the shortlist. Photograph: Heather Weston
Stories of a galaxy at war, an animal uprising and a super-powered squirrel are competing for the Guardian children's fiction prize.
Kate DiCamillo's Newbery medal-winning Flora & Ulysses, in which comic‑book fan Flora discovers that the squirrel she rescues from a vacuum cleaner has unexpected powers ("strength, flight and misspelled poetry"), will be pitted against Piers Torday's tale of animals preparing to rise against their human enemies, The Dark Wild.
The shortlist is completed by SF Said's Phoenix, in which a boy sets out to save the galaxy, and E Lockhart's mystery about four friends, We Were Liars.
The award is judged by children's authors, and has been won by major names in children's fiction over its 40‑plus-year history, from Diana Wynne Jones to Michelle Magorian. Judge Gillian Cross said this year's shortlist consisted of "four fantastic, inventive books, all completely different from each other – showing how ridiculous it is to talk of children's fiction as 'genre writing'". She praised The Dark Wild as a "thrilling dystopian adventure that poses uncomfortable questions about how we relate to the natural world"; Flora & Ulysses for its "weird, unpredictable humour"; We Were Liars as "a wise, subtle book about grief and guilt" that "needs to be read at least twice"; and Phoenix as "an explosion of a book, with a dramatic and dazzling end".
Her fellow judge Frank Cottrell Boyce called the lineup "a list of amazing diversity and exuberant invention", with judge and Waterstones award-winning author Katherine Rundell describing it as "a shortlist to revel in; four very different books that share intelligence and heart as their common denominator".
The prize will be awarded on 13 November, joining recent former winners including Patrick Ness, Mal Peet and Boyce himself.
Kate DiCamillo's Newbery medal-winning Flora & Ulysses, in which comic‑book fan Flora discovers that the squirrel she rescues from a vacuum cleaner has unexpected powers ("strength, flight and misspelled poetry"), will be pitted against Piers Torday's tale of animals preparing to rise against their human enemies, The Dark Wild.
The shortlist is completed by SF Said's Phoenix, in which a boy sets out to save the galaxy, and E Lockhart's mystery about four friends, We Were Liars.
The award is judged by children's authors, and has been won by major names in children's fiction over its 40‑plus-year history, from Diana Wynne Jones to Michelle Magorian. Judge Gillian Cross said this year's shortlist consisted of "four fantastic, inventive books, all completely different from each other – showing how ridiculous it is to talk of children's fiction as 'genre writing'". She praised The Dark Wild as a "thrilling dystopian adventure that poses uncomfortable questions about how we relate to the natural world"; Flora & Ulysses for its "weird, unpredictable humour"; We Were Liars as "a wise, subtle book about grief and guilt" that "needs to be read at least twice"; and Phoenix as "an explosion of a book, with a dramatic and dazzling end".
Her fellow judge Frank Cottrell Boyce called the lineup "a list of amazing diversity and exuberant invention", with judge and Waterstones award-winning author Katherine Rundell describing it as "a shortlist to revel in; four very different books that share intelligence and heart as their common denominator".
The prize will be awarded on 13 November, joining recent former winners including Patrick Ness, Mal Peet and Boyce himself.
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