Norfolk author Mal Peet, an illustrator turned
author has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal, one of the world's
leading children's book prizes.
He has been nominated for his second novel, Tamar,
which is about two men caught up in secret operations in World War
Two.
It looks at the impact of war and how it affects
everyone involved, through the generations.
Speaking to the National Literacy Trust, Mal, who
grew up on a council estate in north Norfolk, said he was always
reading as a child.
"I was a very hungry little reader, and lived
in a crowded house with no telly, so I almost always had my nose
in a book," he said.
"My parents got me a book a month from a
mail-order company; my best memories are of new books arriving;
unwrapping the parcel, studying the picture on the cover, smelling
the book (they all smelled different), putting off starting to read
until I couldn't bear it any longer," he added.
The other four books on the shortlist are Turbulence,
by the late Jan Mark, Clay, by David Almond, Framed by Frank Cottrell
Boyce, and The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean.
The winner will be announced at a ceremony
at the British Library London on Friday 7 July 2006.
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