Barrington Stoke Competition Winner Announced
What do 12 year-old kids really want to read?
Leading Scottish publisher Barrington Stoke asked all the twelve-year-olds in the Dundee Area to tell them, by writing the blurb for a book they'd like to read. Then author Catherine MacPhail will take the best blurb and turn it into a full novel, to be published by Barrington Stoke in 2009.
The winning blurb was written by Becky Wright of Morgan Academy:
The school was dark. Empty. Phoebe and her 5 best friends sat alone in their maths classroom getting ready for a ghostly game of hide and seek. One after another they start to go missing.
Will they be able to find their friends in time to face the danger that hovers around the corner?
The judges praised this blurb:
Really atmospheric, scary, balancing between spookiness and real-life terror. Nicely detailed in a short space - the story could develop in various directions, but all of them would grow out of what's written here. There's something about the tiny details of the empty, dark classroom and the girls looking to give themselves a scare and getting more than they bargained for that brings the story instantly alive. You just know the feel and shape of the book from this blurb - it leaps off the page, vivid as a teen horror movie, and just as compelling. And it fits Cathy's voice beautifully!
The competition was run in conjunction with Dundee City Council's Education Department and Leisure and Communities Department.
The book, provisionally entitled "Hide and Seek", will be published in early 2009.