‘The Lie Tree’ by Frances Hardinge wins the Costa Book Award 2015

Ms Dahlke writes: 

Congratulations to Frances Hardinge for winning the Costa Book of the Year award for her young adult novel, The Lie Tree. Despite the award being established in 1971, this is only the second time a book for young people has won it. I’m not surprised that it won the overall award, I read it over the summer holidays and have been recommending it to people (of all ages) ever since.

The book is set in Victorian times and begins with Faith, a teenage girl, and her family arriving on an island in order to escape the scandal that engulfed them in London. What was the scandal? And why is her natural scientist father so reluctant to talk about it? Faith is determined to find out.

This book has an original and tightly structured plot, which keeps the suspense going until the very end. Faith – stubborn and spiky, but with a sense of honour that wins out in the end – is a great character. It’s an entertaining read that will also raise questions about the nature of truth and lies. 

I would agree that this is a unique and fascinating novel, appealing to all ages. More information is available in an interesting article from Telegraph books

 

Service Team – Book List

The Service Team at Wellington College suggested a book list on the theme of social issues. This is a starting point – most of the following books are available from the Library; we will be adding books to this list. I personally would highly recommend Tuesdays with Morrie as a remarkable and uplifting book dealing with terminal illness and dying but also with many positive messages for all of us. Matt Haig’s autobiographical book ‘Reasons to stay alive’ deals with depression in a very honest way but has some helpful suggestions for dealing with the illness which still challenges him.

A selection of mainly autobiographical books giving some insight into a range of social issues.

  • Depression, Mental health issues
    • Black rainbow – Rachel Kelly
    • Reasons to stay alive – Matt Haig
    • The shock of the fall – Nathan Filer (fiction)
    • It’s kind of a funny story – Ned Vizzini
  • Dementia, Aging
    • Elizabeth is missing – Emma Healey (fiction)
  • Homelessness, Addiction
    • A street cat named Bob – James Bowen
  • Poverty, Child neglect
    • Ugly – Constance Briscoe
    • The Kid – Kevin Lewis
    • Hidden – Cathy Glass
  • Life lessons
    • Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom