Readit, readit, readit

As I have said before, a great perk of this being a bookseller lark is getting ‘reading copies’ of new books. It’s brilliant, not only do we get to read titles before they make it to the shelves, we also get to gloat about it (a bit). The following title has actually been around for a little while, but somehow I managed to miss it. There are so many books and only a limited number of hours in the day.

Thanks to the lovely Heidi at Walker Books I have received a copy of Sheena Wilkinson’s Taking Flight.

This is Wilkinson’s debut novel, with a target readership of 14+. It was the Children’s Books Ireland’s Editor’s Choice for 14+ (2010), one of The Irish Times’ Children’s Books of the Year 2011, and has won two Bisto Children’s Book of the Year Awards: the Children’s Choice Award and the Honour Award for Fiction. Not bad eh? On top of that, it was shortlisted for the Reading Association of Ireland awards, featured in the International Youth Library’s White Ravens catalogue and features on the 2012 IBBY Honour List. Phew, that’s quite a list of accolades for a debut novel.

All of the above are justly deserved. I wish that this had been written when I was a teen so that I could have read and re-read it. It is actually that good. The dual narration is a clever device, as it allows the reader to make connections with two key characters, rather than just one. I won’t give anything away, you’ll need to read it for yourself.

I will certainly be ordering myself a copy of the sequel, ‘Grounded’. How did I ever miss the work of this super-talented author?