Futuristic thriller \u2018The Fearless\u2019 has been chosen as the 2016 winner of South Gloucestershire\u2019s young people\u2019s literature prize the Concorde Book Award.<\/p>\n
The debut novel by Derbyshire author Emma Pass beat off competition from five other young people\u2019s fiction titles to claim the coveted award.<\/p>\n
Once again this year\u2019s winner was chosen after an exciting district-wide reading challenge in which hundreds of young people from public and school library reading groups throughout South Gloucestershire worked their way through a shortlist of titles.<\/p>\n
Votes were cast on World Book Day and the winner was announced last night at a gala event at the Bristol and Bath Science Park in Emersons Green.<\/p>\n
Receiving the award, Emma Pass said: \u201cThank you so much. I’m absolutely shocked \u2013 I was not expecting it at all. Winning these awards means so much because it’s the readers that pick the winning author.
\n\u201cI am absolutely honoured to have won \u2013 it has been a fantastic evening. Thank you so much for inviting me!\u201d<\/p>\n
Chair of South Gloucestershire Council Cllr Erica Williams said: \u201cIt was a pleasure to attend the award ceremony and I was really impressed by the enthusiasm of everyone taking part.
\n“Reading for pleasure is a very rewarding activity and the great thing about the Concorde Book Award is the way it encourages a love for books that will hopefully stay with those taking part throughout their lives.”<\/p>\n
\u2018Wild Boy\u2019 author Rob Lloyd Jones and bestselling World Book Day author Cavan Scott also attended and spoke at the event.<\/p>\n
The Concorde Book Award, supported by The Bristol Post, is a long-running \u2018young people\u2019s Booker\u2019 run by South Gloucestershire schools and public libraries in which groups of young people read a shortlist of novels before voting on their favourite title.<\/p>\n
The scheme aims to promote a love of reading among 11-13 year olds and since it was launched in 2007, thousands of young people have taken part.<\/p>\n
The Award is unique in being one of the few literary awards chosen by young people rather than adults.<\/p>\n
Shortlisted books are made available from South Gloucestershire public and school libraries, and voting takes place on World Book Day in March each year.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s shortlisted titles were \u2018Apple and Rain\u2019 by Sarah Crossan, \u2018Terror Kid\u2019 by Benjamin Zephaniah, \u2018She is not Invisible\u2019 by Marcus Sedgwick, \u2018The Fearless\u2019 by Emma Pass, \u2018Wild Boy\u2019 by Rob Lloyd Jones, and \u2018Would the real Stanley Carrot please stand up?\u2019 by Rob Stevens.<\/p>\n