Catherine Austen’s All Good Children is on a roll. Since its release in the fall of 2011, the dystopian teen fiction title has won or been nominated for a growing list of awards, including Resource Links‘ “The Year’s Best,” the CLA Young Adult Book Award (winner), the CCBC Best Books list, YALSA’s Teen’s Top Ten (nominee) and most recently, the YALSA Best Fiction for YA (nominee—winner to be announced later this year).
About All Good Children
It’s the middle of the twenty-first cent
ury and the elite children of New Middletown are lined up to receive a treatment that turns them into obedient, well-mannered citizens. Maxwell Connors, a fifteen-year-old prankster, misfit and graffiti artist, observes the changes with growing concern, especially when his younger sister, Ally, is targeted. Max and his best friend, Dallas, escape the treatment, but must pretend to be “zombies” while they watch their pad and hopes decay. When Max’s family decides to take Dallas with them into the unknown world beyond New Middletown’s borders, Max’s creativity becomes an unexpected bonus rather than a liability.
Get your copy of All Good Children.
Visit Catherine Austen’s website to check out all her books for children, middle-school readers and teens.
We’re thrilled to announce that Catherine Austen has won the Canadian Library Association(CLA) Young Adult Book Award for 2012 for All Good Children.
The Young Adult Book Award recognizes an author of an “outstanding Canadian English-language work of fiction (novel or collection of short stories) that appeals to young adults between the ages of 13 and 18.” Previous winners include Kenneth Oppel, Lesley Livingston, Allan Stratton, Martha Brooks, William Bell, Shyam Selvadurai, Miriam Toews, and Polly Horvath.
Here’s what the CLA had to say:
“In the near future of All Good Children, corporate towns proliferate and try to control the lives of everyone who lives in them. In Middleville, a school vaccination program has been instituted that turns girls and boys into compliant and obedient good children. Catherine Austen takes us on a roller-coaster ride of humour and suspense as, through the eyes of teen artist and prankster Maxwell Conner, we experience the resistance of his family and a close friend to the “zombification” program. Austen’s novel explores the nature and value of creativity, individuality, and non-conformity with memorable characters and a gripping plot.” Read the full press release.
Congratulations also go out to this year’s honour books and authors: Karma, by Cathy Ostlere (Penguin Canada) and This Dark Endeavour, by Kenneth Oppel (HarperCollins). A complete list of the 2011 finalists, as well as information on past winners, is available on the CLA web site.
Learn more about All Good Children (and order your print or ebook copy!) on the Orca Book Publishers website.
Freedom to Read Poster 1995
Take the "Banned Book Challenge."
Dr. Toni Samek has created and teaches a course on Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibilities at the Faculty of Education, University of Alberta and is also the convenor of the CLA Intellectual Freedom Advisory Committee. She has developed a web-based challenges form that received a very good response for 2006. From the responses, they have put together a list of some of the 2006 challenges to books and other materials found in school and public libraries in Canada in 2006, as well as the libraries' response. This was a first-time effort in gathering information from Canadian libraries through the Canadian Library Association listserv, and other places on the Internet that are frequented by librarians. She adds that this is not an all-encompassing list.
ury and the elite children of New Middletown are lined up to receive a treatment that turns them into obedient, well-mannered citizens. Maxwell Connors, a fifteen-year-old prankster, misfit and graffiti artist, observes the changes with growing concern, especially when his younger sister, Ally, is targeted. Max and his best friend, Dallas, escape the treatment, but must pretend to be “zombies” while they watch their pad and hopes decay. When Max’s family decides to take Dallas with them into the unknown world beyond New Middletown’s borders, Max’s creativity becomes an unexpected bonus rather than a liability.
