Congratulations to the Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year Winners 2016

Dave Rudden has been announced the Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year (Senior Category) winner for his debut novel Knights of the Borrowed Dark at the Irish Book Awards.

This is the first book in what will become a trilogy featuring Denizen Hardwick, an orphan with a pretty normal life until a particularly dark night when “the gates of Crosscaper Orphanage open to a car that almost growls with power.” Denizen soon learns that monsters can grow out of the shadows and there is an ancient order of knights who keep such monsters at bay. If he joins the Order will he fulfil his destiny, or turn his back on everything his family did to keep him alive?

Dave Rudden was one of Clare County Library’s visiting authors for Children’s Book Festival 2015. We are pleased to announce that he will make a return visit in February 2017 when for the first time the Ennis Book Club Festival partners with the library service for Teen Week.

Congratulations also to E.R. Murray whose second title The Book of Shadows in the Nine Lives Trilogy (Mercier Press) was shortlisted in the same category at the Irish Book Awards last week. Elizabeth met with her many fans in County Clare during the Children’s Book Festival in October and she will make a welcome return to our branches during Teen Week 2017.

The winner of the Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year (Junior Category) was Pigín of Howth (Gill Books) written by Kathleen Watkins and illustrated by Margaret Anne Suggs.