22 May 2015
High Praise for our Two Judges at Lancashire Book of the Year 2015
The Lancashire Book of the Year award is now in its 29th year – making it the longest running regional book award in the country. The award remains one of the few book awards in the country, in which young people themselves are solely responsible for choosing both the shortlist and the overall winning book.
Kiera Tatton and Finn Thomson represented the school at Lancashire County Hall on Friday. The final 10 books shortlisted from 64 titles were hotly debated through the morning to be narrowed down to five. After a series of further intense discussions in the chamber and breaking out into small groups, the winning title was voted for by secret ballot in the afternoon. The range of topics that the books brought to the table included politics, feminism, stereotypes, romance, characterisation, writing style and the pros and cons of fictionalised accounts of real-life events.
Jake Hope, the chair and facilitator of the student debate commented:
"It was good to see you on Friday and thanks for the all of the support that you and Lytham St Annes have given to the Lancashire Book of the Year award. I was keen to write to say how impressed I was with the level of discernment and thought that Kiera and Finn brought to the task of appraising the shortlist. The comments they made were of consistently high quality and, although I realise the final five must have been frustrating for Kiera, I genuinely felt that she contributed some of the strongest and most robust arguments of any of the judges - they would easily have stood alongside those made for national awards - and was a true credit to the school."
High praise indeed.
The shortlist is attached below. The winning title remains a closely guarded secret and will be revealed in June. The school would like to offer many thanks to Lancashire County Libraries, Jake Hope and Jillian Connolly for organising this fantastic event for students across Lancashire. Long may it last!
