Tuesday 18 March 2014

I WON!!!! Wahoo!

Well, then.  Isn't that crazy.  I won.

I'll repeat that, in case you weren't paying attention: I WON!!!!

The Scottish Children's Book Awards took place on Wednesday 5th March and yours truly (that's right, me!) won the Older Readers 12-16 category!!!!  38,000 pupils across Scotland voted and they decided that they liked Ferryman the most.  Which is absolutely AWESOME as I was up against some seriously tough competition.  Diana Hendry (The Seeing) has got loads of experience and Barry Hutchison (The Book of Doom) had already won twice before.  

The whole day was fantastic.  The ceremony took place at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow (which, to my shame, despite having lived just two miles away, I'd never been to) and we started with some pictures.  There's a great shot of us cross-legged on the floor (so glad I wore my jeans!) with kids jumping up and down behind us.  It was terrifying - I was expecting an eight year old child to come crashing down on my shoulders any second.  But... the picture that I look best in, is this one:

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It was taken by Alan Peebles (hee hee, Peebles!!) who is now my new best friend.  I suspect air-brushing may have been involved ;)

After photos I was interviewed by the Daily Mail and Cally Uni radio and then there was a very quick lunch followed by book signing and then the awards ceremony itself.  This time the Older Readers were all by themselves so we had a quiz and announced the winners of the Review and Trailer competitions.  Well done guys!  There was a Peebles High School contingent in attendance and I have it on good authority that the event was a success and good fun.  Then... the moment arrived.  I'd practised my Oscar-face, but let's face it: if I hadn't won there might have been some swearing and chucking things and screaming of "fix!"  ;)

I had to do a speech.  Which I did.  Well, I squealed.  That counts, right?

Afterwards there was another book signing and Waterstones sold out of copies of Ferryman which was a) awesome and b) pooh-pants as some pupils couldn't get a signed copy.  Sorry, folks, although I did scribble my illegible sig on a few bookmarks and scraps of jotter paper.  

So there you are.  It was a very exciting day and I can now say that I am the Scottish Children's Book Awards winner 2013.  Can't say better than that. xxx

Claire x
 

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