Young critics from the Lenzie Academy near Glasgow visiting the Guardian. Photograph: Graham Turner
"And the winner is: Jenny Valentine for Finding Violet Park". A cheer goes up from adults and children alike. Several people come up afterwards and say, "What a good choice", "That's an excellent winner", "I so hoped that would win". Were they just being polite? How many of the year's 200-plus submitted titles had they read? And, were they right?
Although it took argument and consideration to reach that point, Philip Reeve, Eleanor Updale and Linda Newbery, the three judges of the 2007 Guardian children's fiction prize were absolutely sure that they were. Despite liking many of the other books a lot, they were unanimous that Finding Violet Park had an economy of style that is rare enough among all books and almost unheard of in a first novel.
It reflected author Valentine's confidence, who credits her ability "to use one word where others would use five" to Kurt Vonnegut whom she cites as her favourite author. For this and other reasons, mostly to do with the author's instinctive warmth towards teenagers and her uncloying attitude to them, it stood out.
For those who entered the Young Critics Competition, too, this was the book of the longlisted eight which they readily recognised as the most original. In the reviews they submitted as their entries for the competition (whose results are announced tomorrow), this was the book of the longlisted eight which they readily recognised as the most original. They enjoyed the humour of Andy Stanton's Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire, the warmth of Allan Ahlberg's The Boyhood of Burglar Bill. They recognised some familiar fantasy territory in Sally Prue's The Truth Sayer, Charlie Fletcher's Stoneheart and Tim's Lott's Fearless. And they relished the history in Mary Hoffman's The Falconer's Knot and the football in Mal Peet's The Penalty.
But they delighted especially in Finding Violet Park because it crackled with something hard to define, something very different. The story of a teenage boy - who begins a journey of discovery about himself and his missing father after he comes across the abandoned urn containing the ashes of an old lady - was of a different stripe to anything they'd read before.
Judged by other writers who eschew they hype of the publishers and concentrate on what the author has set out to achieve and how well they have done so, the Children's fiction prize has only one substantial criterion - you can only win it once.
For some, such as Philip Pullman and Jacqueline Wilson, that once came well into their publishing careers. For others, like Jenny Valentine - and Meg Rosoff before her - this marks the beginning. At any stage, the trajectory of a children's author is unpredictable and fragile. In an overcrowded market, prizes are just one way to launch and cement writing careers and to propel some of the year's best titles into the hands of readers.
